Enchanted Pilgrimage

Clifford D. Simak

1

The rafter goblin spied on the hiding monk, who was spying on the scholar. The goblin hated the monk and had reason for the hate. The monk hated no one and loved no one; he was bigoted and ambitious. The scholar was stealing what appeared to be a manuscript he had found hidden behind the binding of a book.

The hour was late and the library hushed. Somewhere a mouse scrabbled furtively. The candle standing on the desk over which the scholar crouched guttered, burning low.

The scholar lifted the manuscript and tucked it inside his shirt. He closed the book and put it back on the shelf. He snuffed out the candle with a finger and a thumb. Pale moonlight, shining through tall windows that reached almost to the rafters, lit the interior of the library with a ghastly radiance.

The scholar turned from the desk and made his way among the tables of the study room, heading for the foyer. The monk shrank further back into the shadows and let him go. He made no move to stop him. The goblin watched, full of hate for the monk, and scratched his head in perplexity.

2

Mark Cornwall was eating cheese and bread when the knock came at the door. The room was small and cold; a tiny blaze of twigs burning in the small fireplace did little to warm it.

He rose and brushed crumbs of cheese off his coat before he went to the door. When he opened it a small, wizened creature stood before it—scarcely three feet tall, he was dressed in tattered leathern breeches. His feet were bare and hairy and his shirt was a worn crimson velvet. He wore a peaked cap. "I am the goblin of the rafters," he said. "Please, may I come in?"

"Certainly," said Cornwall. "I have heard of you. I thought you were a myth."

The goblin came in and scurried to the fire. He squatted in front of it, thrusting his hands out toward the blaze.

"Why did you think of me as a myth?" he asked petulantly. "You know that there are goblins and elves and others of the Brotherhood. Why should you doubt me?"

"I don't know," said Cornwall. "Because I have never seen you, perhaps. Because I have never known anyone who has. I thought it was a student story."

"I keep well hidden," said the goblin. "I stay up in the rafters. There are hiding places there and it is hard to reach me. Some of those monkish characters in the library are unreasonable. They have no sense of humor."

"Would you have some cheese?" asked Cornwall.

"Of course I'd have some cheese. What a foolish question."

He left the fire and hoisted himself onto the rough bench that stood before the table. He looked around the room. "I take it," he said, "that you have no easy life. There is no softness here. It is all hard and sparse."

"I get along," said Cornwall. He took the dagger from the scabbard at his belt and cut a slice of cheese, then sawed a slice off the loaf of bread and handed it to his visitor.

"Rough fare," said the goblin.

"It is all I have. But you didn't come for cheese and bread."

"No," the goblin said. "I saw you tonight. I saw you steal the manuscript."

"Okay," said Cornwall. "What is it that you want?"

"Not a thing," the goblin said. He took a bite of cheese. "I came to tell you that the monk, Oswald, also was watching you."

"If he had been watching, he would have stopped me. He would have turned me in."

"It seems to me," the goblin said, "that there is a peculiar lack of remorse on your part. You do not even make an effort to deny it."

"You saw me," Cornwall said, "and yet you did not turn me in. This business must go deeper than it seems."

"Perhaps," the goblin said. "You have been a student here how long?"

"Almost six years."

"You are no longer a student, then. A scholar."

"There is no great distinction between the two."

"I suppose not," the goblin agreed, "but it means you are no shiny-faced schoolboy. You are beyond simple student pranks."

"I think I am," said Cornwall, "but I don't quite see your point. . . ."

"The point is that Oswald saw you steal it and yet he let you go. Could he have known what you stole?"

"I would rather doubt it. I didn't know what it was myself until I saw it. I wasn't looking for it. I didn't even know that it existed. I noticed when I got the book down that there was something rather strange about the binding on the back cover. It seemed too thick. It gave beneath one's fingers, as if something might be hidden there, between the binding and the board."

"If it was so noticeable," asked the goblin, "how is it that no one else had found it? How about another chunk of cheese?"

Cornwall cut another slice of cheese and gave it to him. "I think there is an easy answer to your question. I imagine I may have been the first one in a century or more who had taken down that book."

"An obscure tome," said the goblin. 'There are many such. Would you mind telling me what it was?"

"An old traveler's tale," said Cornwall. "Written many years ago, several hundred years ago. In very ancient script. Some monk of long ago made it a thing of beauty when he copied it, with intricate and colorful initial letters and pretty conceits in the margins. But if you ask me, it was a waste of time. By and large, it is a pack of lies."

"Then why did you go looking for it?"

"Sometimes from many falsehoods one may garner certain truths. I was looking for the mention of one specific thing."

"And you found it?"

"Not in the book," said Cornwall. "In the hidden manuscript. I'm inclined to think the book is the original copy of the tale. Perhaps the only one. It is not the sort of thing that would have been copied extensively. The old monk in the scriptorium probably worked from the traveler's own writings, copying it in style, making it a splendid book that one might be rightly proud of."

"The manuscript?"

"Not really a manuscript. Only a single page of parchment. A page from the traveler's original manuscript. It had something in it that the monk left out."

"You think his conscience bothered him and he compromised by binding the page from which he had deleted something under the back cover of the book."

"Something like that," said Cornwall. "Now let us talk about what you came here for."

"The monk," the goblin said. "You do not know this monk, Oswald, as I do. Of all the scruffy crew, he is by far the worst. No man is safe from him, no thing is sacred. Perhaps it has crossed your mind he might have had a purpose in not apprehending you, in not raising an outcry."

"My theft does not seem to perturb you," Cornwall pointed out.

"Not at all," the goblin said. "I am rather on your side. For years this cursed monk has tried his best to make my life a misery. He has tried to trap me; he has tried to hunt me down. I have cracked his shins aplenty and have managed, in one way or another, to pay him back for every shabby trick, but he still persists. I bear him no goodwill. Perhaps you've gathered that."

"You think he intends to inform on me?"

"If I know him," the goblin said, "he intends to sell the information."

"To whom would he sell it? Who would be interested?"

"Consider," said the goblin, "that a hidden manuscript has been filched from its hiding place in an ancient book. The fact that it seemed important enough to be hidden—and important enough to be filched—would be intriguing, would it not?"

"I suppose you're right."

"There are in this town and the university," said the goblin, "any number of unprincipled adventurers who would be interested."

"You think that it will be stolen from me?"

"I think there is no question that it will. In the process your life will not be entirely safe."

Cornwall cut another slice of cheese and handed it to him. "Thank you," said the goblin, "and could you spare me another slice of bread?"

Cornwall cut a slice of bread.

"You have been of service to me," he said, "and I am grateful to you. Would you mind telling me what you expect out of this?"

"Why," the goblin said, "I thought it was apparent. I want to see that wretched monk stub his toe and fall flat upon his face."

He laid the bread and cheese on the tabletop, reached inside his shirt and brought out several sheets of parchment. He laid them on the table.

"I imagine, Sir Scholar, that you are handy with the quill."

"I manage," Cornwall said.

"Well, then, here are some old parchments, buffed clean of the writing once upon them. I would suggest you copy the page that you have stolen and leave it where it can be found."

"But I don't. . ."

"Copy it," said the goblin, "but with certain changes you'll know best to make. Little, subtle changes that would throw them off the track."

"That's done quite easily," said Cornwall, "but the ink will be recent ink. I cannot forge the writing. There will be differences and . . ."

"Who is there to know about the different script? No one but you has seen the manuscript. If the style of script is not the same, no one will know or guess. The parchment's old and as far as the erasure is concerned, if that could be detected, it was often done in the olden days when parchment was hard to come by."

"I don't know," said Cornwall.

"It would require a scholar to detect the discrepancies you are so concerned about and the chances are not great the forgery will fall into a scholar's hands. Anyhow, you'll be long gone. . . ."

"Long gone?"

"Certainly," said the goblin. "You can't think you can stay around after what has happened."

"I suppose you're right. I had thought of leaving in any case."

"I hope the information in the manuscript is worth all the trouble it will cause you. But even if it isn't. . ."

"I think perhaps it is," said Cornwall.

The goblin slid off the bench and headed for the door.

"Wait a second," said Cornwall. "You've not told me your name. Will I be seeing you again?"

"My name is Oliver—or at least in the world of men that's what I call myself. And it is unlikely we will ever meet again. Although, wait —how long will it take you to make the forgery?"

"Not too long," said Cornwall.

"Then I'll wait. My powers are not extensive, but I can be of certain aid. I have a small enchantment that can fade the ink and give the parchment, once it is correctly folded, a deceptive look of age."

"I'll get at it right away," said Cornwall. "You have not asked me what this is all about. I owe you that much." "You can tell me," said the goblin, "as you work."

3

Lawrence Beckett and his men sat late at drink. They had eaten earlier, and still remaining on the great scarred tavern table were a platter with a ham bone, toward the end of which some meat remained, and half a loaf of bread. The townspeople who had been there earlier were gone, and mine host, having sent the servants off to bed, still kept his post behind the bar. He was sleepy, yawning occasionally, but well content to stay, for it was not often that the Boar's Head had guests so free with their money. The students, who came seldom, were more troublesome than profitable, and the townspeople who dropped in of an evening had long since become extremely expert in the coddling of their drinks. The Boar's Head was not on the direct road into town, but off on one of the many side streets, and it was not often that traders the like of Lawrence Beckett found their way there.

The door opened and a monk came in. He stood for a moment, staring about in the tavern's murky gloom. Behind the bar mine host stiffened to alertness. Some tingling sense in his brain told him that this visit boded little good. From one year's end to the next, men of the saintly persuasion never trod this common room.

After a moment's hesitation the monk pulled his robes about him, in a gesture that seemed to indicate a shrinking from contamination by the place, and made his way down the room to the corner where Lawrence Beckett and his men sat at their table. He stopped behind one of the chairs, facing Beckett.

Beckett looked at him with a question in his eyes. The monk did not respond.

"Albert," said Beckett, "pour this night bird a drink of wine. It is seldom we can join in cups with a man who wears the cloth."

Albert poured the drink, turning in his chair to hand it to the monk.

"Master Beckett," said the monk, "I heard you were in town. I would have a word with you alone."

"Certainly," said Beckett, heartily. "A word by all means. But not with me alone. These men are one with me. Whatever I may hear is fit for their ears as well. Albert, get Sir Monk a chair, so he may be seated with us."

"It must be alone," said the monk.

"All right, then," said Beckett. "Why don't the rest of you move down to another table. Take one of the candles, if you will."

"You have the air," said the monk, "of humoring me."

"I am humoring you," said Beckett. "I cannot imagine what you have to say is of any great importance."

The monk took the chair next to Beckett, putting the mug of wine carefully on the table in front of him, and waiting until the others left.

"Now what," asked Beckett, "is this so secret matter that you have to tell me?"

"First of all," said the monk, "that I know who you really are. No mere trader, as you would have us think."

Beckett said nothing, merely stared at him. But now some of the good humor had gone out of him.

"I know," said the monk, "that you have access to the church. For the favor that I do you, I would expect advancement. No great matter for one such as you. Only a word or two."

Beckett rumbled, "And this favor you are about to do me?"

"It has to do with a manuscript stolen from the university library just an hour or so ago."

"That would seem a small thing."

"Perhaps. But the manuscript was hidden in an ancient and almost unknown book."

"You knew of this manuscript? You know what it is?"

"I did not know of it until the thief found it. I do not know what it is."

"And this ancient book?"

"One written long ago by an adventurer named Taylor, who traveled in the Wastelands."

Beckett frowned. "I know of Taylor. Rumors of what he found. I did not know he had written a book."

"Almost no one knew of it. It was copied only once. The copy that we have."

"Have you read it, Sir Monk?"

The monk shrugged. "Until now it had no interest for me. There are many books to read. And traveler's tales are not to be taken entirely at face value." "You think the manuscript might be?"

"To have been hidden so cleverly as it was, within the binding of the book, it would have to have some value. Why else bother to hide it?"

"Interesting," said Beckett softly. "Very interesting. But no value proved."

"If it has no value, then you owe me nothing. I am wagering that it does have."

"A gentleman's agreement, then?"

"Yes," said the monk, "a gentleman's agreement. The manuscript was found by a scholar, Mark Cornwall. He lodges in the topmost garret of the boardinghouse at the northwest corner of King and Broad."

Beckett frowned. "This Cornwall?"

"An obnoxious man who comes from somewhere in the West. A good student, but a sullen one. He has no friends. He lives from hand to mouth. He stayed on after all his old classmates had left, satisfied with the education they had gotten. Principally he stays on, I think, because he is interested in the Old Ones."

"How interested in the Old Ones?"

"He thinks they still exist. He has studied their language or what purports to be their language. There are some books on it. He has studied them."

"Why has he an interest in the Old Ones?"

The monk shook his head. "I do not know. I do not know the man. I've talked to him only once or twice. Intellectual curiosity, perhaps. Perhaps something else."

"Perhaps he thought Taylor might have written of the Old Ones."

"He could have. Taylor could have. I have not read the book."

"Cornwall has the manuscript. By now he would have hidden it."

"I doubt it has been hidden. Not too securely, anyhow. He has no reason to believe that his theft of it is known. Watching him, I saw him do it. I let him leave. I did not try to stop him. He could not have known I was there."

"Would it seem to you, Sir Monk, that this studious, light-fingered friend of ours may have placed himself in peril of heresy?"

"That, Master Beckett, is for you to judge. All about us are signs of heresy, but it takes a clever man to tread the intricacies of definition."

"You are not saying, are you, that heresy is political?"

"It never crossed my mind."

"That is good," said Beckett, "for under certain, well-defined conditions, the university itself, or more particularly the library, might fall under suspicion because of the material that can be found on its shelves."

"The books, I can assure you, are used with no evil intent. Only for instruction against the perils of heresy."

"With your assurance," said Beckett, "we can let it rest at that. As for this other matter, I would assume that you are not prepared to regain the manuscript and deliver it to us."

The monk shuddered. "I have no stomach," he said, "for such an operation. I have informed you; that should be enough."

"You think that I am better equipped and would have a better stomach."

"That had been my thought. That's why I came to you."

"How come you knew us to be in town?"

"This town has ears. There is little happening that goes unknown."

"And I take it you listen very carefully."

Said the monk, "I've made it a habit."

"Very well," said Beckett. "So it is agreed. If the missing item can be found and proves to have some value, I'll speak a word for you. That was your proposal?"

The monk nodded, saying nothing.

"To speak for you, I must know your name."

"I am Brother Oswald," said the monk.

"I shall mark it well," said Beckett. "Finish off your wine and we shall get to work. King and Broad, you said?"

The monk nodded and reached for the wine. Beckett rose and walked forward to his men, then came back again.

"You will not regret," he said, "that you came to me."

"I had that hope," said Brother Oswald.

He finished off the wine and set the cup back on the table. "Shall I see you again?" he asked.

"Not unless you seek me out."

The monk wrapped his habit close about himself and went out the door. Outside the moon had sunk beneath the rooftrees of the buildings that hemmed in the narrow alley, and the place was dark. He went carefully, feeling his way along the rough, slick cobblestones.

A shadow stepped out of a doorway as he passed. A knife gleamed briefly in the dark. The monk dropped, gurgling, hands clawing at the stones, a sudden rush of blood bubbling in his throat. Then he grew quiet. His body was not found until morning light.

4

Gib of the Marshes was up before the sun. He was always up before the sun, but on this day there was much to do. This was the day the gnomes had named when the new ax would be ready. He needed the new ax, for the blade of the old one, worn down and blunted, would no longer take a proper edge, no matter how much whetstone might be used.

Ordinarily at this season of the year the marsh would have been wrapped in low-hanging fog early of a morning, but this morning it was clear. A few wisps of layered fog hung above the island where the wood was gotten, but otherwise there was no sign of it. To the east and south, the marsh lay flat and far, brown and silver, with its reeds and grasses. Ducks gabbled in nearby ponds and a muskrat swam through a channel, creating a neat V of an aftermath as he moved along. Somewhere far off a heron croaked. West and north, the forested hills rose against the sky—oaks, maples, hickories, some of them already touched with the first colors of the autumn.

Gib stood and looked toward the hills. Up there, somewhere in that tangled woodland, was the home of his good friend, Hal of the Hollow Tree. Almost every morning, when there was no fog and the hills stood in view, he stood and tried to pick out the home tree, but he never had been able to, for from this distance no one tree could be told from any of the others. He would not, he knew, have time to visit Hal today, for once he had picked up the ax, he must pay his respects to the lonely old hermit who lived in the cave of the limestone capping of one of the distant hills. It had been a month or more since he'd gone calling on the hermit.

He rolled up the goose-down pad and the woolen blanket he had used for sleeping and stored them away in the hut in the center of the raft. Except when the weather was cold or it happened to be raining, he always slept outdoors. On the iron plate on the forward part of the raft he kindled a fire, using dry grass and punk from a rotting log, which he kept in one corner of the woodbox, as kindling, and flint and steel to produce the spark.

When the fire was going, he reached a hand into the live-box sunk beside the raft and brought out a flapping fish. He killed it with a blow of his belt knife and quickly cleaned it, putting the fillets into a pan, which he set on the grill above the fire, squatting to superintend the cooking.

Except for the soft talking of the ducks and the occasional plop of a jumping fish, the marsh was quiet. But, then, he thought, at this time of day it was always quiet. Later in the day there would be blackbirds quarreling in the reeds, the whistling wings of water fowl passing overhead, the harsh cries of shore birds and of gulls.

The east brightened and the marsh, earlier an indistinctness of brown and silver, began to take on new definition. Far off stood the line of willows that edged the narrow height of ground that stood between the distant river and the marsh. The patch of cattails closer to the wooded hill shore could now be seen, waving their full brown clubs in the vagrant wind.

The craft bobbed gently as he ate from the pan, not bothering with a plate. He wondered what life might be like on solid ground, without the bobbing of the raft. He had lived all his years on a bobbing raft, which was only stilled when cold weather froze it in.

Thinking of cold weather, he ran through his mind all that remained to do to get ready for the winter. He would need to smoke more fish, must gather roots and seeds, try to pick up a few muskrats for a winter robe. And get in wood. But the wood gathering would go faster once he had the new ax from the gnomes.

He washed out the pan in which he'd fried the fish, then put into the boat, tied alongside the raft, the bundles that he had gotten together before he went to sleep. In them were dried fish and packets of wild rice, gifts for the gnomes and the hermit. At the last moment he put his old ax in the craft; the gnomes could make use of the metal to fashion something else.

He paddled quietly down the channel, unwilling to break the morning hush. The sun came up into the east and on the opposite hills, the first autumn colors flamed with brilliance.

He was nearing the shore when he rounded a bend and saw the raft, the forepart of it thrust into the grass, the rest of it projecting out into the channel. An old marshman was sitting at the stern of the raft, mending a net. As soon as Gib came into view, the old man looked up and raised a solemn hand in greeting. It was Old Drood and Gib wondered what he was doing here. The last time he had heard of Drood, he had his raft over near the willow bank close to the river.

Gib pulled his boat against the raft, thrust out a paddle, and held it there.

"Long time since I saw you," he said. "When did you move over here?"

"A few days ago," said Drood. He left his net mending and came over to squat close beside the boat. He was getting old, Gib saw. As long as he could remember, he had been called Old Drood, even when he'd not been old, but now the years were catching up with the name. He was getting gray.

"Figured I'd try for some wood over on the shore," he said. "Not much but willow left over there against the river and willow makes poor burning."

Mrs. Drood came waddling around the hut. She spoke in a high-pitched, squeaky voice. "I thought I heard someone. It's young Gib, isn't it?" She squinted at him with weak eyes.

"Hello, Mrs. Drood," said Gib. "I'm glad you are my neighbors."

"We may not stop here for long," said Drood. "Only long enough to get a load of wood."

"You got any so far?"

"Some," said Drood. "It goes slow. No one to help. The children all are gone. Struck off on their own. I can't work as hard as I once could."

"I don't like it," said Mrs. Drood. "There are all them wolves."

"I got my ax," said Drood. "There ain't no wolf going to bother me long as I have the ax."

"All the children gone," said Gib. "Last time I saw you, there still was Dave and Alice."

"Alice got married three, four months ago," said Drood. "Young fellow down at the south end of the marsh. Dave built himself a raft. Good job he did with it. Wouldn't let me help him much. Said he had to build his own. He built himself a nice raft. Moved over to the east. We see him and Alice every now and then."

"We got some ale," said Mrs. Drood. "Would you like a mug of ale? And I forgot to ask you, have you had your breakfast? It would only take a minute."

"I've had breakfast, Mrs. Drood, and thank you. But I'd like a mug of ale."

"Bring me one, too," said Drood. "Can't let Gib here drink alone."

Mrs. Drood waddled back to the hut.

"Yes, sir," said Drood, "it ain't easy getting in the wood. But if I take my time, I can manage it. Good wood, too. Oak and maple, mostly. All dried out and ready for the fire. Lots of down stuff. No one has touched it for years. Once in a while a pack train camps near here, if they're caught at night, and have to rustle up some camp wood. But they don't make a dent in it. Up the hill a ways there's a down shagbark hickory and it's the best wood that there is. You don't find one of them down too often. It's a far ways to go to reach it, though. . . ."

"I'm busy today," said Gib, "but tomorrow and the next day I can help you with the wood."

"There ain't no need to, Gib. I can manage it."

"I'd like some of that hickory myself."

"Well, now, if that's the way of it, I'd go partners with you. And thanks an awful lot."

"Glad to."

Mrs. Drood came back with three mugs of ale. "I brought one for myself," she said. "Land sakes, it ain't often we get visitors. I'll just sit down while we drink the ale."

"Gib is going to help me with the wood tomorrow," said Drood. "We'll go after that big hickory."

"Hickory is good wood," said Mrs. Drood.

"I am getting me a new ax," said Gib. "The old one is almost worn out. It was one my father gave me."

"Your folks are up near Coon Hollow, so I hear," said Mrs. Drood.

Gib nodded. "Been there for quite a while. Good place to be. Good wood, good fishing, plenty of muskrat, one little slough with a lot of wild rice in it. I think they will stay on."

"You're getting your new ax from the gnomes?" asked Drood.

"That's right," said Gib. "Had to wait awhile. Spoke to them about it way last summer."

"Fine workmen, them gnomes," said Drood judiciously. "Good iron, too. That vein they're working is high-grade ore. Pack trains stop every now and then and take everything they have. Good reputation, no trouble selling it. I sometimes wonder. You hear terrible things of gnomes, and maybe they are sort of scaly things. But these gnomes of ours are all right. I don't know how we'd get along without them. They been here for years, as long as anyone can remember."

"Things can get along together," said Mrs. Drood, "if they have good hearts."

"The gnomes ain't people, Mother," Drood reminded her.

"Well, I don't care," said Mrs. Drood. "They're creatures, and they ain't so much different from us. In a lot of ways they are less different from us than we are from humans. The Hill People are a lot like us."

"The main thing," said Drood, "is that all of us manage to get along together. Take us and humans. Humans are twice as big as we are and they have smooth skins where we have fur. Humans can write and we can't. Humans have money and we don't. We trade for what we want. Humans got lots of things we haven't, but we don't begrudge them it and they don't look down on us. Just so long as we get along together, everything's all right."

Gib finished his ale. "I have to go," he said, "I have a long day ahead of me. I have to get my ax, then go calling on the hermit."

"I hear the hermit is right poorly," said Drood. "He is getting on in years. He is half as old as them there hills."

"You're going calling on the hermit?" asked Mrs. Drood.

"That is what he said," Drood told her.

"Well, you just wait a minute. I got something I want to send him. A chunk of that wild honey the Hill People gave me."

"He'd like that," said Gib.

She scurried off.

"I've often wondered," said Drood, "what the hermit has gotten out of life, sitting up there on top of the hill in that cave of his, never going anywhere, never doing nothing."

"Folks come to him," said Gib. "He's got all sorts of cures. Stomach cures, throat cures, teeth cures. But they don't always come for cures. Some just come to talk."

"Yes, I suppose he does see a lot of people."

Mrs. Drood came back with a package that she gave to Gib.

"You stop by for supper," she said. "No matter if you're late, I'll save some supper for you."

"Thanks, Mrs. Drood," said Gib. He pushed away from the raft and paddled down the winding channel. Squawling blackbirds rose in clouds before him, wheeling in dark-winged flight above his head, lighting on distant reeds with volleys of profanity.

He reached the shore, the ground rising abruptly from the margin of the marsh. Giant trees close to the marsh's margin reached great limbs far above the grass and water. A great oak grew so close to the water's edge that some of its roots, once enclosed in earth that had washed away, stuck out like clawing fingers from the bank.

Gib tied the boat to one of the roots, heaved his bundles and the old ax ashore, then scrambled up the bank. He shouldered the bundles and picked his way along a faint path that ran up a hollow between two of the towering hills. He reached and crossed a better-defined path, a trail used by the infrequent pack trains that were either passing through or coming to trade with the gnomes.

The marsh had been noisy with blackbirds, but as Gib walked deeper into the wooded hills a hushed silence closed in about him. Leaves rustled in the wind, and occasionally he could hear the tiny thud of a falling acorn as it hit the ground. Earlier in the morning squirrels would have done some chattering to greet the morning sun, but now they were going quietly about their business of foraging for food, slipping like darting shadows through the woods.

The climb was steep, and Gib stopped for a moment to lean against a lichen-grown boulder. He didn't like the woods, he told himself. Gone from it for only a short time, he already missed the marsh. The woods had a secretive grimness and the marsh was open. In the marsh one knew where he was, but here one could easily become confused and lost.

5

Sniveley, the gnome, said, "So you have come for your ax."

"If it is ready," Gib said.

"Oh, it is ready well enough," Sniveley grumbled. "It was ready yesterday, but come on in and sit. It is a tiring climb up here, even for a young one."

The cave opened out from the hillside, and beyond its mouth, half filling the deep ravine that ran below it, was a heap of earth and slag, a huge hog's back, along which ran a wheelbarrow track to reach the dump of mine tailings at its end. So ancient was the earth and slag heap that along its sloping sides trees had sprung up and reached a respectable size, some of them canted out of line so that they hung above the ravine at eccentric angles. Back from the mouth of the cave, extending deep into the hill, forge-flames flared, and there was the sound of heavy hammering.

Sniveley led the way into a small side cave that connected obliquely with the main one that led into the mine. "Here," he said, "we can sit in peace and have some surcease from noise. More than that, we'll be out of the way of the wheelbarrows that come charging from the mine."

Gib laid one of the bundles on the counter that ran against one wall. "Smoked fish," he said, "and some other things. The other bundle's for the hermit."

"I have not seen the hermit for years," said Sniveley. "Here, take this chair. I just recently covered it with a new sheepskin. It is very comfortable."

Gib sat down in the indicated chair, and the gnome took another, hitching it around so he could face his visitor. "Actually," he said, "I only called on the hermit once. A neighborly act, I thought. I took him, as a gift, a fine pair of silver candlesticks. I never went again. I fear that I embarrassed him. I felt an unease in him. He said nothing, of course. . . ."

"He wouldn't," said Gib. "He is a kindly man."

"I shouldn't have done it," said the gnome. "It came from living so long in the land of humans and dealing so much with them that I began to lose the distinction between myself and man. But to the hermit, and I suppose to many other men, I am a reminder of that other world in which I properly belong, against which men still must have a sense of loathing and disgust, and I suppose for a reason. For ages man and the many people of my world fought very hard and viciously against one another, with no mercy, and I suppose, at most times, without a sense of honor. In consequence of this, the hermit, who is, as you say, the kindliest of men, did not quite know how to handle me. He must have known that I was harmless and carried no threat to him or any of his race, and yet he was uneasy. If I had been a devil, say, or any sort of demon, he would have known how to act. Out with the holy water and the sacred spells. But I wasn't a devil, and yet in some obscure way I was somehow connected with the idea of the devil. All these years I have regretted that I called on him."

"And yet he took the candlesticks."

"Yes, he did. Most graciously, and he thanked me kindly for them. He was too much a gentleman to throw them back in my face. He gave me, in return, a length of cloth of gold. Someone, I suppose, perhaps some noble visitor, had given it to him, for the hermit would have had no money to buy so princely a gift. I have often thought, however, that he should have kept it and given me a much more lowly gift. I've wondered all these years what I possibly could do with a length of cloth of gold. I keep it in a chest and I take it out now and then and have a look at it, but that is all I ever do with it. I suppose I could trade it off for something more utilitarian, but I hesitate to do that, for it was the hermit's gift and for that reason seems to me to have a certain sentimental value. One does not sell gifts, particularly a gift from so good a man."

"I think," said Gib, "that you must imagine much of this—the hermit's embarrassment, I mean. I, for example, have no such feeling toward you. Although, in all fairness, I must admit that I am not a human."

"Much closer than I am," said the gnome, "and therein may lie a difference."

He rose. "I'll get your ax," he said, "and there is something else that I want to show you." He patted the bundle Gib had placed on the counter. "I'll give you credit for this. Without it you have credit left, even with the ax."

"There's something I've always wanted to ask you," said Gib, "and never had the courage until now. All the People of the Marshes, all the People of the Hills, even many of the humans who know not how to write, bring you goods and you give them credit. It must be, then, that you know how to write."

"No," said the gnome, "I don't. Few gnomes do. Some goblins, perhaps. Especially those that hang out at the university. But we gnomes, being a trader people, have worked out a system of notation by which we keep accounts. And very honest, too."

"Yes," said Gib, "extremely honest. Most meticulous."

Sniveley went to the back of the room and rummaged around among some shelves. He came back with the ax, mounted on a helve of hickory.

"I think," he said, "the balance is right. If it's not, bring it back and we'll correct it."

Gib hefted it admiringly. "It feels right," he said. "It feels exactly right. If there is need of some slight adjustment, I can manage it."

He took the blade in his hands, rubbing the shiny metal with his thumbs. "Beautiful," he said. "Beautiful. With care it will last me all my life."

Sniveley was pleased. "You like it?"

"It is a masterly job," said Gib. "As I knew it would be."

"You will find," said Sniveley, "that it will take a fine edge. It will hold that edge. Be careful of stones. No ax will stand against a stone."

"I am careful," said Gib. "An ax is too fine a tool to mistreat."

"And now," said the gnome. "I have something else to show you."

He sat down and put something that was carefully wrapped in a sheepskin on his knee. He unwrapped it almost reverentially.

As the sheepskin fell away, the object it had covered caught the light and blazed. Gib leaned forward, looking at it, entranced.

"A sword!" he said.

"A man's sword," said Sniveley. "Too large, too long, too heavy for such as you or I. A fighter's sword. No flashy jewels, no fancy glitter. A tool just like your ax. An honest blade. In all the time that I've been here, the swords that we have made you can count upon the fingers of one hand. And this is by far the best of them."

Gib reached out and touched the blade. "It has a personality," he said. "It is the kind of weapon that one could give a name to. Old stories say that olden men often named their swords, as they would name a horse."

"We found one small pocket of richer ore," said Sniveley. "We took it out most carefully and have hoarded it away. Such ore you do not find too often. It shall be used for special things—like this blade and your ax."

"You mean my ax . . ."

"The ax and sword are brothers."

"Let us hope," said Gib, "that the sword passes into worthy hands."

"We shall make certain that it does," said Sniveley.

"I brought you the old ax," Gib said. "The metal still is good, but the bevel has worn so short it cannot be satisfactorily sharpened. There is no rust upon it. I thought perhaps you could reuse the metal. I expect no credit for it."

He lifted it from the floor and handed it to the gnome.

"It was a good ax," Sniveley said. "It was your father's ax?"

Gib nodded. "He gave it to me when I built my raft."

"We made it for him," said Sniveley. "It was a good ax. Not as good as yours."

"My father sends you greetings. And my mother, too. I told them I'd be seeing you."

"It is a good life that you have," said the gnome. "All of you down in the marsh. For many years. You have no history, do you? You don't know how long."

"We cannot write events," said Gib. "We have only the old tales, passed on from father to son. There may be truth in them, but I don't know how much."

"So long as the gnomes have been in the hills," said Sniveley, "your people have been there. There before we came. We have our legends, too. About the one who discovered ore here and the development of the mine. As with you, we cannot judge the truth."

Gib hoisted the hermit's bundle onto his shoulder. "I must get on," he said. "The hermit's cave is a long climb. I want to reach home before the fall of night."

Sniveley wagged his head. "It is good to do so. There are many wolves this year. More than I've ever known. If you are running late, stop here and spend the night. You would be most welcome."

6

At first Gib thought the hermit was not at home, although that would have been passing strange. Of late years, since he had grown feeble, the hermit had never left the cave except to sally out on occasions to collect the roots, the herbs, the leaves, and barks that went into his medications.

The fire in the cave was out, and there was no smell of smoke, which meant it had been out for long. Dried egg yolk clung to the lone plate on the rough trestle table.

Gib peered into the darkness. "Hermit," he said softly, half afraid to speak, stricken with a sudden apprehension that he could not understand. "Hermit, are you here?"

A weak sound came from a corner. It could have been a mouse.

"Hermit," Gib said again.

The sound repeated.

Carefully Gib walked toward the corner, crouching to see better.

"Here," said the hermit weakly. The voice was no louder than the fluttering of a leaf.

Then Gib, his eyes becoming accustomed to the darkness, made it out—the low dark mound in the corner, the paleness of the face.

"Hermit, what is wrong?"

Gib crouched above the pallet and saw the wasted form, a blanket pulled up to the chin.

"Bend low," the hermit said. "I can barely speak."

"Are you sick?" Gib asked.

The pale lips barely moved. "I die," they said. "Thank God that you came."

"Do you want something? Water? Soup? I could make some soup."

"Listen," said the hermit. "Do not talk, but listen."

"I'll listen."

"The cabinet over against the wall."

"I see it."

"The key is around my neck. Cord around my neck."

Gib reached out his hand.

"No, wait."

"Yes?"

"In the cabinet—in the cabinet. . ."

The hermit struggled to talk.

"A book, leather-bound. A fist ax. Ax made out of stone. Take both to the bishop . . ."

"Which bishop?"

"Bishop of the Tower. Up the river, north and west. Ask. People will tell you."

Gib waited. The hermit did not speak. He did not try to speak.

Gently, Gib reached out a hand, found the cord that lay against the hermit's neck. He lifted the hermit's head to slip it free. A small key dangled at the end.

He let the hermit's head fall back against the pillow.

He waited for a moment, but the hermit did not stir. He rose to his feet and went across the cave to unlock the cabinet. The book was there, a small book bound in leather. Beside it lay the ax. It was like no ax Gib had ever seen before. It was made of stone and was pointed at one end. Even made of stone, it had the smooth look of metal. Only by looking closely could one see where the chips had been flaked off to shape it.

There were other items in the cabinet—a razor, a pair of shears, a comb, a small vial half filled with a blue substance.

He took out the book and ax and went back to the pallet.

The hermit opened bleary eyes and looked at him. "You have them? Good."

"I'll take them to the bishop."

"You are Gib. You've been here before."

Gib nodded.

"You'll wait?"

"I'll wait. Is there nothing I can do? No water?"

The hermit rolled his head from side to side. "Nothing," he said.

Gib waited, on his knees beside the pallet. The hermit's breathing was so shallow that his chest scarcely moved and it was a long time between breaths. Occasionally hairs on the upper lip of the hermit's bearded face fluttered slightly when the breath came from his nostrils.

Once the hermit spoke. "I am old," he said. "It is time. Past time." Then he lapsed back into silence. The shallow breathing went on. Twice Gib was almost convinced it had stopped entirely. But it had not stopped. It was only faint.

"Gib?"

"Yes?"

"Leave me here. When it is done, leave me here."

Gib did not answer. The silence hummed. The shallow breathing still went on.

Then: "Wall up the cave. Will you do that?"

"Yes," said Gib, "I will."

"I would not want the wolves..."

He did not finish the sentence. Gib continued sitting beside the pallet. Once he went to the cave mouth and looked out. The sun had passed the zenith and was inclining toward the west. From the high point of the cave he could see that part of the marsh from which he had set out that morning. He could see almost to the river.

Gib went back and resumed his vigil. He tried to think and found that he could not think. There were too many things to think, too much to think about. He could not get it sorted out. There was confusion in his mind.

For some time he had not been watching the hermit, but simply sitting there. When he did look at him, he could detect no breathing movement. He waited, remembering there had been times before when he could detect no movement. But time stretched out and there was no flutter of the whiskers on the upper lip, no sign of life at all. He bent his head close against the chest and could detect no heartbeat. He rolled a lid back from an eye and the eye stared back in glassiness.

The hermit, he knew, was dead. But he continued to sit beside him, as if the mere fact of continuing the vigil would beat back the fact of death. He found that now he could think, while he had not been able to before. Had there been, he wondered, anything that he could have done? He remembered in horror that he had not even tried to give the hermit any water. He had asked and the hermit had said that he had no need of water. But even so, should he have tried to give him some? Should he have tried to bring some help? But where could he have gone for help? And who could have been of help? And, he told himself, he could not have brought himself to leave a dying man, to let him die alone.

The hermit, he thought, had been an old man and had not been afraid of death. He wondered if he might not have looked on death as a welcome friend. This very morning Drood had wondered what the hermit had gotten out of life and that, of course, was a question still unanswered. But, Gib told himself, he must have gotten something out of life, perhaps a great deal out of life, to have been able to face death so serenely.

Now there were things to do, he told himself, and the afternoon was waning. He pulled back the blanket and crossed the hands of the hermit decently on his chest, then pulled the blanket up to cover his face. Having done that, he went outside to search for boulders he could use to block the entrance to the cave.

7

Hal of the Hollow Tree climbed over the rail fence and entered the cornfield. He was safe, he knew. The moonshiner and his sons were husking on the other side of the field and the moonshiner's dogs were sleeping off, beneath the stilted corncrib, the effects of last night's hunt.

It had been a long hunt and apparently an unsuccessful one. Hal and Coon had sat for hours outside the hollow tree and listened to its progress. The dogs had barked "treed" once, but the coon must have gotten away, for soon after they struck out on the trail again. Several times the two listeners had seen the lights of the lantern as the moonshiner and his sons had followed the hounds.

The corn crop had been good this year. Not that the moonshiner and his loutish family had contributed to it with outstanding husbandry. They hadn't; the corn had been hoed only two or three times and not at all in the later period of its growth and, as a result, weeds grew thickly between the rows. But the ears hung heavy, and it seemed there were more of them than usual.

Hal went into the corn patch five or six rows. Although there was no great evidence of it, he knew that some of the outer rows had been pilfered by coons and squirrels. That was why, he knew, the moonshiner hunted coons, or at least why he said he hunted them— to cut down their depredations on his corn patch. But it was not entirely that; coonskins had some value and could be sold. Moonshine, coonskins, and hog meat were this farm's stock-in-trade, and with them the family managed to get along.

Hal began husking, moving rapidly, unwilling to stay longer than he had to. Even learning from earlier counting where the family members were, he had no intention of being apprehended. Choosing the best ears, he stripped down the husk, broke the ears free and dropped them in the sack he carried.

Out at the edge of the field bluejays screeched in the autumn sunshine. In a grove of walnut trees, their golden leaves a burst of color against the drabber oaks, squirrels chattered as they went about their harvest. He liked autumn, Hal told himself, best of all the seasons. In these mellow, tawny days, blue hazed and warm, the land came to fruition and one could sense the satisfactory closing of a long season of growth. It was a respite before the cold closed down again and the long snow came. This year, he knew, he would be well provisioned against the winter. He had bins of nuts and corn, dried berries, a good supply of roots and seeds. One of these days he'd have to go down to the marsh and see if he could trade for some dried fish with his friend, Gib, or perhaps old Drood or some of the other People of the Marsh. Thinking of this, he suddenly realized that it had been a long time since he had seen Gib and now looked forward to a chance to talk with him again.

He hoisted the sack and it was heavier than he had expected; he had picked more ears than he had intended. He wrestled the sack to his shoulder and judged that he could handle it. When he reached the edge of the field, he stopped to look and listen. There seemed no one about. Heaving the heavy sack over the rail fence, he vaulted after it, grabbed the sack and scurried into the woods.

He felt safe now. There was nothing that could catch him in the woods. The woods were home. He knew this forest for miles about, every cranny of it. Angling swiftly down the hill, he headed for the huge hollow oak. As he went, his eyes sought and noted, without too much effort or attention, many different things—the flaming crimson of the ripened berries of the jack-in-the-pulpit, the fact that a small cluster of black haw trees were loaded with fruit that would become edible with the first coming of a killing frost, the heavily laden grapevines, which in many cases masked the very trees in which they grew, the silvery glint of a shed snakeskin left over from the summer, now half concealed in the fallen leaves.

In half an hour or so he reached the oak, a giant that measured at its base a good ten feet in diameter. Twenty feet up its trunk gaped a hole some two feet across. A series of pegs, driven into the wood, formed a ladder by which it could be reached.

There was no sign of Coon. He was probably off somewhere, investigating. It was unlikely, Hal reminded himself, that at this time of day he'd still be inside sleeping.

Hal leaned the sack of corn against the oak, swarmed up the ladder, and crawled through the hole, then climbed down another series of pegs.

The entire interior of the oak was hollowed out. Perhaps not a great deal more than a foot of shell surrounded the cavity. Someday, Hal knew, a wind might snap it off and he'd have to find another home. But here, deep in the forest, the wind was broken up by the many trees, and the oak was further protected by a high, flinty ridge, cutting the course of the prevailing westerlies. The cavity extended up for another twenty feet or so above the opening and here and there the shell was pierced by other smaller holes, admitting some daylight. The floor was made of dry decayed wood, which through the centuries had fallen from the sides of the hole.

A hearth stood to one side of the cavity. There was a table and chairs. Bins and cabinets stood against the walls.

"Hello," a voice said from behind him, and he turned on his heel, his hand going to the knife at his belt. On the edge of the bed sat a wizened creature with big ears. He had on tattered leathern breeches and an old bottle-green jacket over a crimson shirt. He wore a peaked cap.

"Who the hell are you?" asked Hal. "You have your nerve."

"I am the goblin of the rafters from Wyalusing University," said the creature, "and my name is Oliver."

"Well, all right," said Hal, relaxing, "but tell me, what are you doing here?"

"I came to see you," said the goblin, "and you weren't home. I am nervous in the open. You see, a rafter goblin—"

"So you came inside to wait. Lucky for you Coon wasn't around. He'd took you out of here."

"Coon?"

"A big raccoon. He and I are friends. He lives with me."

"Oh, a pet."

"No, not a pet. A friend."

"You going to throw me out?"

"No, you startled me, was all. You hungry?"

"A little," said the goblin. "Have you a bit of cheese?"

"No cheese," said Hal. "How about some cornmeal mush? Or an apple dumpling?"

"The cornmeal mush sounds good."

"All right, then, that will be our supper. I think there still is milk. I get my milk from a woodcutter. Long way to carry it, but he is the nearest with a cow. Maple syrup for sweetening."

The goblin rolled his eyes. "It sounds wonderful."

"I'll stir up the fire. I think there still are coals. You're a long way from home, Master Goblin."

"I have traveled long and far," the goblin said. "My feet are sore and my spirit bruised. There is so much outdoors, and I am unused to space."

Hal went to the hearth and stirred the ash. In its heart was a glow of red. He laid some tinder on it and, bending down, blew on the coals. A tiny flame flickered momentarily, went out, then caught again. Hal fed it tiny twigs.

He squatted back on his heels. "There, now," he said, "we have a fire. There's corn to bring in, but that can be done later. Perhaps you will help me."

"With all my heart," said Oliver.

Hal went to a cupboard, took out a mixing bowl and wooden spoon. From a bin beneath the cupboard he spooned cornmeal into the bowl.

"You say you came to see me."

"Yes, people told me, go see Hal of the Hollow Tree. He'll know, they said, everything that's going on. He knows the woods and all that happens in it. A woodcutter told me how to find the tree. Maybe he was the one who had the cow, although I did not see a cow."

"What do you want to ask me?"

"I am hunting for a man," the goblin said. "A scholar by the name of Cornwall. I had word he was traveling with a pack train that had headed north. It's important that I find him."

"Why important?"

"Because he is in danger. In much greater danger than I had thought."

8

The sun had set, but even here, among the trees, darkness had not fallen. The sky in the west was bright. Dusk was creeping in, but there still was light.

Gib hurried. He still had a mile or more to go, and at this time of year night came swiftly. The path led downhill, but he must go cautiously, on guard against stones or projecting roots that could trip him up. He had stopped briefly at the gnomes' mine to tell Sniveley that the hermit was dead but had passed up the offer to stay overnight since he was anxious to get home. The gnomes, he knew, would swiftly spread the word of the hermit's death and would add a caution against tampering with the boulder wall, which, closing the mouth of the cave, had transformed it to a tomb.

The dusk had deepened as he came down the last stretch of the path before he struck the pack-train trail, and as he began the descent to it, he became aware of snarling. The sound sent a thin chill of terror through him and he halted, straining his ears—now that it was gone, not completely sure he had heard a snarl. But even as he halted, there was another prolonged sound—half snarl, half growl—and other sounds as well, the ghastly sound of teeth tearing at something, a tearing and a slobbering.

Wolves! he thought. Wolves at a kill. Almost instinctively he yelled as loud as he could, a fierce yell and, lifting his ax, charged down the path. It had been, he knew when he later thought of it, the only thing he could have done. To have tried to retreat, to have tried to go around them, no matter how stealthily, would have been an invitation to attack. But now he did not think at all; he simply yelled and charged.

As he burst out of the heavy undergrowth that grew on either side of the path, onto the trail, he saw what had happened. One look was enough to understand what had happened. There were huddled bodies, the bodies of men and horses, on the trail itself. And on either side of it and crouched over the bodies, fighting over the bodies, was a pack of wolves, great, slavering creatures that swung around to face him or lifted their heads from their feasting to face him.

And something else—a single man, still alive, on his knees, his hands gripping the throat of a wolf, trying to hold it off.

With a scream of fury Gib leaped at the wolf, ax held high. The wolf tried to break away; but the kneeling man's deathlike grip on its throat held the wolf anchored for the moment it took for the ax to crash into its head, to cleave deep into the skull. The wolf fell and lay, its hind legs kicking in reflex reaction, while the man slumped forward and fell on his face.

Gib swung around to face the rest of the pack. They backed away a pace or two but otherwise held their ground. They snarled at him and one, to the side, slunk forward a step or two. Gib took a quick step toward him, flourishing the ax, and the wolf retreated. There were, he saw, eight or ten of them; he did not really count them. They stood as tall as he did, their heads on a level with his head.

The standoff situation, he knew, would not hold for long. Now they were measuring and assessing him, and, in a little time, they would make up their minds and come in with a rush, knocking him off his feet, overwhelming him. It would do no good to turn and run, for they'd simply pull him down.

He did the one thing he could do. With a wild yell, he rushed them, lunging toward the slightly larger, more grizzled one he took to be the leader of the pack. The big wolf, startled, turned, but the ax caught him in the shoulder and sheared through it. Another wolf was coming toward Gib and he spun swiftly to meet it, chopping a short arc with his ax. The blade caught the charging monster in the face and the wolf collapsed in its lunge and went skidding to the ground, flopping loosely as it fell.

Then the pack was gone. They melted into the dark underbrush and there was no sign of them.

Still gripping his ax, Gib turned to the man who had been fighting off the wolf. He gripped him by his shoulders and lifted him, swinging him around so that he was on the path that led down to the marsh. The man was heavy. But the worst was over now. The path sloped sharply, and he could haul him to the water if the wolves did not come back too soon. They would come back, he knew, but there might be time. He backed down the slope, tugging at the man. He reached the sharp pitch that led down to the water and gave a mighty heave. The man's body flopped and rolled, splashing into water. Backing out into the marsh, Gib hauled the man after him and hoisted him to a sitting position. Here, for the moment, he knew, the two of them were safe. It was unlikely the wolves, with so much feasting left to them on the trail, would follow. Even if they did, they would hesitate to come into the water.

The man lifted an arm and pawed at Gib, as if he might be trying to fight him off.

Gib gripped his shoulder and shook him. "Try to stay sitting up," he said. "Don't fall over. Don't move. I'll get my boat."

The boat, no more than six feet long, he knew, would not carry the man's full weight, but if he could get him to use it as a support, it would keep him from sinking when they moved out into deeper water. They would not have far to go if Drood's raft were still where he'd found it in the morning.

9

The sky above him was the deepest blue he had ever seen and there was nothing that obstructed it. All he could see was sky. He was lying on something soft and was being gently rocked and there was a sound like the faint, monotonous slap of water.

He felt an impulse to turn his head, to lift an arm, to try in some manner to discover where he was, but a certain caution, whispering deep inside his mind, told him not to do it, not to make a single motion, to hazard no sign that would draw attention to him.

Thinking back, he remembered a snarling muzzle with slashing teeth. He could still feel the roughness of the grizzled fur his hands had clutched to hold the monster off. It was a memory that was fuzzy and more nightmare than memory and he tried, futilely, to puzzle out whether it was truth or fantasy.

He lay quietly, fighting off the tendency of his nerves to tighten up, and he tried to think. Certainly he was not where he had been when, whether in truth or fantasy, he had contested with the wolf. For there had been trees there; the trail had been edged and roofed over by the trees and here there were no trees.

Something made a harsh sound to one side and above him and he rolled his head slowly and saw the red-winged blackbird swaying on a cattail, its claws clutching desperately to maintain its balance. It spread its wings and flirted its tail and squawked at him, glaring at him out of beady eyes.

Feet came shuffling toward him and he lifted his head a few inches and saw the little woman, short and dumpy, in the checkered dress-like a well-proportioned dwarf and human, but with a furry face.

She came and stood above him. He let his head back on the pillow and stared up at her.

"I have soup for you," she said. "Now that you are awake, I have soup for you."

"Madam," he said, "I do not know. . ."

"I am Mrs. Drood," she said, "and when I bring you soup you must be sure to eat it. You have lost much strength."

"Where am I?"

"You are on a raft in the middle of the marsh. Here you are safe. No one can reach you here. You are with the People of the Marsh. You know the People of the Marsh?"

"I have heard of you," said Cornwall. "I remember there were wolves . . ."

"Gib, he saved you from the wolves. He had this brand new ax, you see. He got it from the gnomes."

"Gib is here?"

"No, Gib has gone to get the clams, to make clam chowder for you. Now I get duck soup. You will eat duck soup? Chunks of meat in it."

She went shuffling off.

Cornwall raised himself on his right elbow and saw that his left arm was in a sling. He struggled to a sitting position and lifted his hand up to his head. His fingers encountered bandages.

It was coming back to him, in bits and pieces, and in a little while, he knew, he would have it all.

He stared out across the marsh. From the position of the sun he gathered that it was midmorning. The marsh stretched far away, with clumps of stunted trees growing here and there—perhaps trees rooted on islands. Far off, a cloud of birds exploded from the grass and reeds, went volleying up into the sky, wheeled with military precision, and floated back to rest again.

A boat came around a bend and cruised down the channel toward the raft. A grizzled marsh-man sat in the stern. With a twist of his paddle he brought the boat alongside the raft.

"I am Drood," he said to Cornwall. "You look perkier than you did last night."

"I am feeling fine," said Cornwall.

"You got a hard crack on the skull," said Drood. "Scalp laid open. And that arm of yours had a gash in it clear down to the bone."

He got out of the boat and tied it to the raft, came lumbering over to where Cornwall sat, and squatted down to face him.

"Guess you were lucky, though," he said. "All the others dead. We went over this morning and searched the woods. Looks like no one got away. Bandits, I suppose. Must have come a far piece, though. One time there were bandits lurking in these hills, but they cleared out. They ain't been here for years. What kind of stuff you carrying?"

Cornwall shook his head. "I'm not sure. Trade goods of all sorts, I think. Mostly cloth, I guess. I wasn't a member of the train. I was just along with them."

Mrs. Drood came shuffling from behind the hut, carrying a bowl.

"Here is Ma," said Drood. "Has some soup for you. Eat all you can. You need it."

She handed him a spoon and held the bowl for him. "You go ahead," she said. "With only one arm, you can't hang onto the bowl."

The soup was hot and tasty and once he had the first spoonful, he found that he was ravenous. He tried to remember when he had had his last meal and his memory failed him.

"It surely does one's heart good," said Drood, "to watch someone spoon in victuals that way."

Cornwall finished up the bowl. "You want another one?" asked Ma. "There is plenty in the kettle."

Cornwall shook his head. "No, thank you. It is kind of you."

"Now you lay back," she said. "You've sat up long enough. You can lay here and talk with Pa."

"I don't want to be a bother. I've put you out enough. I must be getting on. As soon as I see Gib to thank him."

Pa said, "You ain't going nowhere. You ain't in shape to go. We are proud to have you, and you ain't no bother."

Cornwall lay back, turning on his side so he faced the squatting marsh-man.

"This is a nice place to live," he said. "Have you been here long?"

"All my life," said Drood. "My father before me and his father before him and far back beyond all counting. We marsh people, we don't wander much. But what about yourself? Be you far from home?"

"Far," said Cornwall. "I came from the west."

"Wild country out there," said Drood.

"Yes, it is wild country."

"And you were going back there?"

"I suppose you could say I was."

"You are a tight-lipped creature," Drood told him. "You don't say much of nothing."

"Maybe that's because I haven't much to say."

"That's all right," said Drood. "I didn't mean to pry. You take your rest now. Gib will be coming back almost any time."

He rose and turned to walk away. "A minute, Mr. Drood," said Cornwall. "Before you go—thanks for everything."

Drood nodded at him, his eyes crinkling in a smile. "It's all right, young fellow. Make yourself to home."

The sun, climbing up the sky, was warm upon him and Cornwall closed his eyes. He had no more than closed them when the picture came—the sudden surge of men out of the woods, the chunk of arrows, the shadowed flash of blades. It had been quietly done-there had been no screaming and no bellowing except by the men who had been hit, and not too many of them, for the most of them had died quickly, with arrows through their hearts.

How had it come, he wondered, that he had lived through it? He could remember little—a sword coming down on his head and instinctively throwing up his arms to ward it off, then falling. He could remember falling from the horse he rode, but he had no memory of falling to the ground—just falling, but not striking. Perhaps, he thought, he may have fallen into a heavy patch of undergrowth, for underbrush grew thick and close beside the trail—falling there and being considered dead, not being noticed later.

He heard a grating sound and opened his eyes. Another boat had drifted in against the raft. In it sat a young marsh-man and before him, in the middle of the craft, a basket full of clams.

Cornwall sat up. "You must be Gib," he said.

"That's right," said Gib. "I'm glad to see you looking well."

"My name is Mark Cornwall. They tell me you are the one who saved my life."

"I am glad I could. I got there just in time. You were fighting off a wolf with your bare hands. That took a lot of guts, to do a thing like that. Do you remember any of it?"

"It is all pretty vague," said Cornwall. "Just snatches here and there."

Gib got out of the boat, lifted the basket of clams onto the raft. "A lot of chowder there," he said. "You like chowder?"

"Indeed, I do."

"Mrs. Drood makes it like you never tasted."

He came over and stood beside Cornwall. "Drood and I went out this morning. We found seven bodies. The bodies had been stripped of everything of value. Not a knife, not a purse. All the goods were gone. Even the saddles from the horses. It was the work of bandits."

"I am not so sure," said Cornwall.

"What do you mean, you're not so sure?"

"Look," said Cornwall, "you saved my life. I owe you something. All I can give you is the truth. Drood was asking questions, but I told him nothing."

"You can trust Drood," said Gib. "He's all right. You can trust any marsh-man. And you don't need to tell me. I don't need to know."

"I somehow feel I should," said Cornwall. "I am not a trader. I am, or rather I was, a student at the University of Wyalusing. I stole a document from the university library, and I was warned by a friendly goblin to flee because others might want the document. So I hunted up a trader and paid him to let me travel with him."

"You think someone attacked the trader's party to get rid of you? Or to get the document? They killed everyone to get rid of you? Did they get the document?"

"I don't think so," said Cornwall. "Pull off my boot, will you? The right boot. With only one hand I can't manage it."

Gib stooped and tugged off the boot.

"Reach into it," said Cornwall.

Gib reached in. "There's something here," he said. He pulled it out.

"That's it," said Cornwall. He awkwardly unfolded the single page and showed it to Gib.

"I can't read," said Gib. "There is no marsh-man who can." "It's Latin, anyway," said Cornwall.

"What I can't understand," said Gib, "is why it should be there. They would have searched you for it."

"No," said Cornwall. "No, they wouldn't have searched me. They think they have the document. I left a copy, hidden, where it was easy for them to find."

"But if you left a copy . . ."

"I changed the copy. Not much. Just a few rather vital points. If I'd changed too much, they might have been suspicious. Someone might have known, or guessed, something of what it is about. I don't think so, but it is possible. It wasn't the document they were after; it was me. Someone wanted me dead."

"You're trusting me," said Gib. "You shouldn't be trusting me. There was no call to tell me."

"But there is," said Cornwall. "If it hadn't been for you, I'd now be dead. There might be danger to you keeping me. If you want to, help me get ashore and I will disappear. If someone asks, say you never saw me. It's only fair to you that you know there might be danger."

"No," said Gib.

"No what?"

"No, we won't put you ashore. No one knows that you are here. No one saw and I have told no one. Anyway, they'll think that you are dead."

"I suppose they will."

"So you stay here until you are well. Then you can go wherever you wish, do what you wish."

"I can't wait for long. I have a long journey I must make."

"So have I," said Gib.

"You as well? I thought you people never left the marsh. Drood was telling me . . ."

"Ordinarily that is so. But there was an old hermit up in the hills. Before he died, he gave me a book and what he called a hand ax. He asked me to deliver them to someone called the Bishop of the Tower . . ."

"North and west from here?"

"That's what the hermit said. Up the river, north and west. You know of this Bishop of the Tower?"

"I have heard of him. On the border of the Wasteland."

"The Wasteland? I did not know. The enchantment world?"

"That's right," said Cornwall. "That's where I am going."

"We could travel together, then?"

Cornwall nodded. "As far as the Tower. I go beyond the Tower.*

"You know the way?" asked Gib.

"To the Tower? No, just the general direction. There are maps, but not too reliable."

"I have a friend," said Gib. "Hal of the Hollow Tree. He has traveled widely. He might know. He might go with us to point out the way."

"Consider this," said Cornwall, "before you decide we should go together: Already there has been one attempt to kill me; there might be others."

"But whoever is concerned already thinks you dead."

"Yes, of course, at the moment that is true. But there would be many eyes along the way and many tongues. Travelers would be noticed and would be talked about."

"If Hal went with us, we'd travel no roads or trails. We'd travel in the forest. There would be few to see us."

"You sound as if you want to travel with me, even knowing . . ."

"We of the marshes are timid folk," said Gib. "We feel unsafe when we go far from the marsh. I don't mind telling you I shrink from the idea of the journey. But with you and Hal along. . ."

"You are good friends with Hal?"

"The best friend that I have. We visit back and forth. He is young, about as old as I am, and stronger, and he knows the woods. He knows no fear. He steals from cornfields, he raids garden patches . . ."

"He sounds a good man to be with."

"He is all of that," said Gib.

"You think he'd go with us?"

"I think he would. He is not one to turn his back on adventure."

10

Sniveley, the gnome, said, "So you want to buy the sword? What do you want the sword for? It is not for such as you. You could scarcely lift it. It is fashioned for a human. No pretty piece of iron, but a sword for a fighting man."

"I have known you for a long time," said Gib. "You have known my people for a long time. And the People of the Hills. Can I speak in confidence?"

Sniveley twitched his ears and scratched the back of his head. "You should know better than to ask me that. We are not blabbermouths, we gnomes. We are a business people and we are not gossips. We hear many things and we do not pass them on. Loose mouths can be a fertile source of trouble and we want no trouble. You know full well that we of the Brotherhood—the goblins and the elves and all the rest of us—live in the land of humans on their sufferance. It is only by sticking to our business and staying strictly out of matters that are no affair of ours that we can survive at all. The Inquisition forever sniffs around, but it seldom acts against us if we remain somewhat invisible. But let us become ever so faintly obnoxious and some pesty human will go rushing off to inform on us, and then there is hell to pay. Perhaps I should be the one to ask if this confidential matter that you mention might be the cause of trouble to us."

"I don't think so," Gib told him. "If I had thought so, I would not have come. We marsh people need you and through the years you have dealt fairly with us. You have heard, of course, of the massacre of the pack train just two nights ago."

Sniveley nodded. "A ghastly business. Your people buried them?"

"We buried what was left of them. We leveled and disguised the graves. We towed the dead animals far out into the marsh. We left no sign of what had happened."

Sniveley nodded. "That is good," he said. "The train will be missed, of course, and the authorities, such as they are, may make some investigation. Not too much of an investigation, I would think, for this is still border country and officialdom does not rest quite easy here. If there had been blatant evidence, they would have had to investigate, and that would have been bad. We, none of us—humans or you or the People of the Hill or the Brotherhood—have any desire for human bloodhounds to be snooping in our yards."

"I feel bad," said Gib, "about one aspect of it. We could not say the proper words above their graves. We do not know the words. Even if we did, we'd not be the proper persons to recite them. We buried them unshrived."

"They died unshrived," said Sniveley, "and it's all foolishness, in any case."

"Foolishness, perhaps," said Gib, "but no more foolishness, perhaps, than many of our ways."

"Which brings us," said Sniveley, "to how all of this is connected with your wanting the sword."

"Not all of them were killed," said Gib. "I stumbled on the massacre and found one who was still alive. It's he who needs the sword."

"He had a sword before and it was looted from him?"

"His sword, his knife, his purse. The killers took the goods the train was carrying and also stripped the bodies. I gather that the sword he had was not a very good one. One his great-grandfather had passed down. And now he needs a good one."

"I have other swords," said Sniveley.

Gib shook his head. "He needs the best. He is going to the Wasteland to hunt out the Old Ones."

"That is insanity," said Sniveley. "There may be no Old Ones left. We gnomes have heard ancient tales of them, but that is all they are-old tales. Even if he found them, what would be the use of it?"

"He wants to talk with them. He is a scholar and he wants—"

"No one can talk with them," said Sniveley. "No one knows their language."

"Many years ago—perhaps thousands of years ago—a human lived with them for a time and he wrote down their language, or at least some words of their language."

"Another tale," said Sniveley. "The Old Ones, if they came across a human, would tear him limb from limb."

"I do not know," said Gib. "All of this is what Mark told me."

"Mark? He is your human?"

"Mark Cornwall. He comes from the west. He has spent the last six years at the University of Wyalusing. He stole a manuscript. . ."

"So now he is a thief."

"Not so much thief as finder. The manuscript had been hidden away for centuries. No one knew of it. It would have continued lost if he'd not happened on it."

"One thing occurs to me," said Sniveley. "You showed me the book and ax that the dying hermit gave you. To be delivered, I believe, to some bishop. Is it possible you and this Mark will make a common journey?"

"That is our intention," said Gib. "We go together to the Bishop of the Tower. Then he will go into the Wasteland."

"And you have thoughts of going with him?"

"I had thought of it. But Mark will not allow it."

"I should hope not," said Sniveley. "Do you know what the Wasteland is?"

"It's enchanted ground," said Gib.

"It is," said Sniveley, "the last stronghold of the Brotherhood. . . ."

"But you—"

"Yes, we are of the Brotherhood. We get along all right because this is the Borderland. There are humans, certainly, but individual humans—millers, woodcutters, charcoal burners, small farmers, moonshiners. The human institutions, government and church, do not impinge on us. You have never seen the lands to the south and east?"

Gib shook his head.

"There," said Sniveley, "you would find few of us. Some in hiding, perhaps, but not living openly as we do. Those who once lived there have been driven out. They have retreated to the Wasteland. As you may suspect, they hold a hatred for all humankind. In the Wasteland are those who have been driven back to it and those who never left, the ones who had stayed there and hung on grimly to the olden ways of life."

"But you left."

"Centuries ago," said Sniveley, "a group of prospecting gnomes found the ore deposit that underlies these hills. For uncounted millennia the gnomes have been smiths and miners. So we moved here, this small group of us. We have no complaint. But if the so-called human civilization ever moved in full force into the Borderland, we would be driven out."

"Humans, however, have traveled in the Wasteland," said Gib. "There was that old traveler who wrote the tale that Mark read."

"He would have to have had a powerful talisman," said Sniveley. "Has this friend of yours a talisman?"

"I do not think he has. He never spoke of it."

"Then he truly is insane. He has not even the excuse of treasure, of finding some great treasure. All he seeks are the Old Ones. And tell me, what will he do if he finds the Old Ones?"

"The ancient traveler did not seek treasure, either," said Gib. "He simply went to see what he could find."

"Then he was insane as well. Are you certain there is no way to dissuade this human friend of yours?"

"I think not. There is no way, I am sure, that one could stop him."

'Then," said Sniveley, "he does have need of a sword."

"You mean you'll sell it to me?"

"Sell it to you? Do you know the price of it?"

"I have some credit with you," said Gib. "Drood has credit. There are others in the marsh who would be willing . . ."

"Take three marshes like the one down there/' said Sniveley, "and there would not be credit enough in all of them to buy the sword. Do you know what went into it? Do you know the care and craftsmanship and the magic that was used?"

"Magic?"

"Yes, magic. Do you think that a weapon such as it could be shaped by hands and fire alone, by hammer or by anvil?"

"But my ax-"

"Your ax was made with good workmanship alone. There was no magic in it."

"I am sorry," Gib said, "to have bothered you."

Sniveley snorted and flapped his ears. "You do not bother me. You are an old friend, and I will not sell the sword to you. I will give it to you. Do you understand what I am saying? I will give it to you. I will throw in a belt and scabbard, for I suppose this down-at-heels human has neither one of them. And a shield as well. He will need a shield. I suppose he has no shield."

"He has no shield," said Gib. "I told you he has nothing. But I don't understand. . . ."

"You underestimate my friendship for the People of the Marshes. You underestimate my pride in matching a sword of my fabrication against the howling horrors of the Wasteland, and you underestimate, as well, my admiration for a puny little human who, from his studies, must know what the Wasteland is and yet is willing to face it and its denizens for some farfetched dream."

"I still don't understand you fully," said Gib, "but I thank you just the same."

"I'll get the sword," said Sniveley, rising from his chair. He was scarcely on his feet when another gnome, wearing a heavy leather apron and who, from the soot on his hands and face, had been working at a forge, came bursting unceremoniously into the room.

"We have visitors," he screamed.

"Why must you," asked Sniveley, a little wrathfully, "make so great a hullabaloo about visitors? Visitors are nothing new. . . ."

"But one of them is a goblin," screamed the other gnome.

"So one of them is a goblin."

"There are no goblins nearer than Cat Den Point, and that is more than twenty miles away."

"Hello, everyone," said Hal of the Hollow Tree. "What is all the ruckus?"

"Hello, Hal," said Gib. "I was about to come to see you."

"You can walk back with me," said Hal. "How are you, Sniveley? I brought a traveler—Oliver. He's a rafter goblin."

"Hello, Oliver," said Sniveley. "And would you please tell me just what in hell is a rafter goblin? I've heard of all sorts of goblins . . ."

"My domicile," said Oliver, "is the rafters in the roof atop the library at the University of Wyalusing. I have come here on a quest."

Coon, who had been hidden from view, walking sedately behind Hal, made a beeline for Gib and leaped into his lap. He nuzzled Gib's neck and nibbled carefully at his ears. Gib batted at him. "Cut it out," he said. "Your whiskers tickle and your teeth are sharp." Coon went on nibbling.

"He likes you," said Hal. "He has always liked you."

"We have heard of a pack-train killing," said the goblin, Oliver. "Word of it put much fear in me. We came to inquire if you might have the details."

Sniveley made a thumb at Gib. "He can tell you all about it. He found one human still alive."

Oliver swung on Gib. "There was one still alive? Is he still alive? What might be his name?"

"He is still alive," said Gib. "His name is Mark Cornwall."

Oliver slowly sat down on the floor. "Thank all the powers that be," he murmured. "He is still alive and well?"

"He took a blow on the head," said Gib, "and a slash on his arm, but both head and arm are healing. Are you the goblin that he told me of?"

"Yes, I am. I advised him to seek out a company of traders and to flee with them. But that was before I knew to whom that cursed monk sold his information. Much good that it did him, for he got his throat slit in the bargain."

"What is going on?" squeaked Sniveley. "What is all this talk of throat slitting and of fleeing. I dislike the sound of it."

Quickly Oliver sketched the story for him. "I felt that I was responsible for the lad," he said. "After all, I got myself involved . . ."

"You spoke," said Gib, "of this human to whom the monk sold his information."

"That's the crux of it," said Oliver. "He calls himself Lawrence

Beckett and pretends to be a trader. I don't know what his real name is, and I suppose it does not matter, but I know he's not a trader. He is an agent of the Inquisition and the most thoroughgoing ruffian in the border country. . . ."

"But the Inquisition," said Sniveley. "It is. . ."

"Sure," said Oliver. "You know what it is supposed to be. The militant arm of the Church, with its function to uproot heresy, although heresy, in many instances, is given a definition which far outstrips the meaning of the term. When its agents turn bad, and most of them turn bad, they become a law unto themselves. No one is safe from them, no perfidy too low. . . ."

"You think," said Gib, "that this Beckett and his men massacred the pack train?"

"I would doubt very much they did the actual killing. But I am certain it was arranged by Beckett. He got word to someone."

"In hopes of killing Mark?"

"With the certainty of killing Mark. That was the only purpose of it. All were supposed to be killed. According to what you say, they stripped Mark, took everything he had. They thought that he was dead, although probably they did not know that the purpose of the attack was to kill one certain man."

"They didn't find the page of manuscript. He had it in his boot."

"They weren't looking for the manuscript. Beckett thought he had it. He stole it from Mark's room."

"The fake," said Hal. "The copy."

"That is right," said Oliver.

"And you came all this way," said Gib, "to warn him against Beckett before it was too late."

"I was responsible. And I was late. Small thanks to me that he still lives."

"It seems to me," said Sniveley gravely, "that the key to all of this may lie in what was written in that fake copy Beckett has. Can you enlighten us on that?"

"Willingly," said Oliver. "We worked it out together and, as I remember it, were quite gleeful at the neatness of it. Some things we had to leave as they were, for the monk would tell whoever he sold the information to where the page of parchment had been found, in what book it had been hidden—the book that Taylor had written about his travels in the Wasteland. Most of which, I am convinced, was a tissue of lies. I even have my doubts he was ever in the Wasteland.

"But be that as it may, we had to leave the most of it, only taking out all mention of the Old Ones. In its place we inserted a story based on legend, a very obscure legend that Mark had come upon in his reading of some ancient tome. The legend of a hidden, legendary university, where was housed incredibly ancient, and equally legendary, books, and a great hoard of primeval treasure. Only a hint that it was in the Wasteland, only something that Taylor had heard about. . . ."

"Are you mad?" howled Sniveley. "Do you know what you have done? Of all the nincompoop ideas—"

"What is the matter?" asked Oliver. "What do you mean?"

"You moron!" shouted Sniveley. "You cretin! You should have known. There is such a university!"

He stopped in midsentence and fixed his gaze on Gib, shifted it onto Hal.

"You two," he said, "you're not supposed to know. No one outside the Brotherhood is supposed to know. It is an old secret. It is sacred to us."

He grabbed Oliver by the shoulder and jerked him to his feet. "How come you didn't know?"

Oliver cringed away. "So help me, I never knew. I never heard of it. I am just a lowly rafter goblin. Who was there to tell me? We thought it was a fable."

Sniveley let Oliver loose. Coon crouched in Gib's lap, whimpering.

"Never in my life," said Hal to Sniveley, "have I seen you so upset."

"I have a right to be upset," said Sniveley. "A pack of fools. A set of various fools who have been snared up in something they should have kept their fingers out of. But, worse than that, an agent of the Inquisition has been given knowledge, faked knowledge that happens to be true, and what do you think he'll do with it? I know what he'll do—head straight into the Wasteland. Not for the treasure that was mentioned, but for the ancient books. Can't you see the power and glory that would descend upon a churchly human who found old heathen books and consigned them to the flames?"

"Maybe he won't get them," Gib said hopefully. "He may try for them and fail."

"Of course he'll fail," said Sniveley. "He hasn't got a chance. All the hellhounds of the Wasteland will be snapping at his heels, and any human who gets out alive will do so through pure luck. But for centuries now there has been peace—at times unwilling peace—between humans and the Brotherhood. But this will light the fires. The Borderland will become unsafe. There'll be war again."

"There is one thing that puzzles me," said Gib. "You had no great objection to Cornwall going into the Wasteland—foolish certainly, but no great objection. I think you rather admired him for his courage. You were willing to give me a sword for him. . . ."

"Look, my friend," said Sniveley, "there is a vast difference between a lowly scholar going out into the Wasteland on an academic and intellectual search and a minion of the Church charging into it with fire and steel. The scholar, being known as a scholar, might even have a chance of coming out alive. Not that he'd be entirely safe, for there are some ugly customers, with whom I have small sympathy, lurking in the Wasteland. But by and large he might be tolerated, for he would pose no danger to our people. He would not bring on a war. If he were killed, he'd be killed most quietly, and no one would ever know how or when it happened. Indeed, there would be few who would ever mark his going there. And he might even come back. Do you see the difference?"

"I think I do," said Gib.

"So now what do we have?" asked Sniveley of Gib. "There is this journey that you are honor bound to make, carrying the book and ax the hermit gave you for delivery to the Bishop of the Tower. And on this journey your precious scholar will travel with you and then continue on into the Wasteland. Have I got the straight of it?"

"Yes, you have," said Gib.

"You have no intention of going into the Wasteland with him?"

"I suppose I haven't."

"But I have such intentions," said the rafter goblin. "I was in at the start of it; I might as well be in at the end of it, whatever that may be. I have come this far and I have no intention whatsoever of turning back."

"You told me," said Hal, "that you had a great fear of open spaces. You had a word for it. . ."

"Agoraphobia," said Oliver. "I still have it. I shiver at the breath of open air. The uncovered sky oppresses me. But I am going on. I started something back there in that Wyalusing garret, and I cannot turn back with it half done."

"You'll be an outlander," said Sniveley. "Half of the Brotherhood, half out of it. Your danger will be real. Almost as much danger to you as there is danger to a human."

"I know that," said Oliver, "but I arn still going."

"What about this matter of you carrying something to the Bishop of the Tower?" Hal asked Gib. "I had not heard of it."

"I had meant to ask you if you'd show us the way," said Gib. "We want to travel overland and I fear we might get lost. You must know the way."

"I've never been there," said Hal. "But I know these hills. We'd have to stay clear of paths and trails, especially with this Inquisition agent heading the same way. I suppose he will be coming through the Borderland. So far there has been no word of him."

"If he had passed by," said Sniveley, "I would have had some word of him."

"If I am to go," asked Hal, "when should I be ready?"

"Not for a few days," said Gib. "Mark has to heal a bit, and I promised Drood I'd help him get some wood."

Sniveley shook his head. "I do not like it," he said. "I like no part of it. I smell trouble in the wind. But if the scholar lad's to go, he must have the sword. I promised it for him and it'll be a sorry day when a gnome starts going back on his promises."

11

They had traveled for five days through sunny autumn weather, with the leaves of the forest slowly turning to burnished gold, to deep blood-red, to lustrous brown, to a pinkness of the sort that made one's breath catch in his throat at the beauty of it.

Tramping along, Mark Cornwall kept reminding himself time and time again that in the past six years he had lost something of his life. Immured in the cold, stone walls of the university, he had lost the color and the smell and the headiness of an autumn forest and, worst of all, had not known he had lost it.

Hal led them, for the most part, along the ridgetops, but there were times when they must cross from one ridge to another or had to leave the high ground to keep out of sight of a ridgetop clearing where a woodcutter or a farmer scratched out a bare existence. While there was no danger in such places; where, indeed, a welcome and a rough sort of hospitality might be accorded them, it was considered best to avoid detection as much as possible. Word would travel fast concerning the movements of such a motley band as theirs and there might be danger in having the fact of their journey noised about.

Plunging down from the ridges into the deep-cut valleys that ran between the hills, they entered a different world—a deep, hushed, and buried world. Here the trees grew closer and larger, rock ledges jutted out of steep hillsides, and massive boulders lay in the beds of brawling creeks. Far overhead one could hear the rushing of the wind that brushed the hilltops, but down below the brows of the rearing bluffs there was no hint of wind. In the quietness of this deeper forest, the startled rush of a frightened squirrel, his foraging disturbed, through the deep layer of autumn leaves, was startling in itself. That, or the sudden explosion of wings as a ruffed grouse went rocketing like a twilight ghost through the tangle of the tree trunks.

At the end of a day's journey they went down into one of the deep hollows between the hills to find a camping place. Hal, scouting ahead, would seek a rock shelter where a fissure in the limestone of a bluff face was overhung either by a ledge of rock or by the bluff itself, offering some protection. The fire was small, but it gave out warmth against the chill of night, holding back the dark, making a small puddle of security and comfort in a woods that seemed to turn hostile with the coming of the night.

Always there was meat, for Hal, wise to the woods and an expert with his bow, brought down squirrels and rabbits, and on the second day, a deer, and on other occasions, grouse. So that, as a result of this, they made lesser inroads on the provisions they carried—wild rice, smoked fish, cornmeal, sparse fare, but sustaining and easy to carry.

Sitting around the fire at night, Cornwall remembered the disappointment of Mrs. Drood when she had been persuaded that she should not have a farewell party for them, inviting in the marsh people, the gnomes and the hill people to speed them on their way. It would have been a good party, but it would have emphasized their going, which all concerned agreed should be kept as quiet as possible.

Five days of sunny weather, but in the middle of the afternoon of the sixth day rain had begun to fall, at first little more than a gentle mist, but increasing as the hours went on, with a wind developing from the west, until, with night about to fall, the rain poured down steadily, driven by the wind that turned it into needles that stung one's face.

Throughout the afternoon Hal hunted for shelter but had found nothing that would afford more than minimal protection against the driving storm.

Cornwall brought up the rear, following Coon, who humped along disconsolately, his coat of fur plastered down with wetness, his bedraggled tail sweeping the forest floor.

Ahead of Coon, Gib and the rafter goblin walked together, with the marsh-man's wet fur gleaming in the soft light that still remained, the goblin weary and hobbling, walking with an effort. The march, Cornwall realized, had been tougher on the goblin than on any of the others. His days of walking, from Wyalusing to Hal's hollow tree, and now the six days of the march, had played him out. Life in the rafters at the university had not fitted him for this.

Cornwall hurried ahead, passing Coon. He reached down and touched the goblin's shoulder.

"Up, on my back," he said. "You deserve a rest."

The goblin looked up at him. "Kind sir," he said, "there is no need."

"I insist," said Cornwall. He crouched down and the goblin clambered on his shoulder, balancing himself with an arm around the human's neck.

"I am tired," he admitted.

"You have traveled far," said Cornwall, "since that day you came to see me."

The goblin chuckled thinly. "We started a long progression of events," he said, "and not finished yet. You know, of course, that I go into the Wasteland with you."

Cornwall grunted. "I had expected as much. You will be welcome, little one."

"The tenor slowly leaves me," said Oliver, the goblin. "The sky no longer frightens me as much as it did when I started out. I am afraid now I might even grow to like the open. That would be a horrible thing to happen to a rafter goblin."

"Yes, wouldn't it?" said Cornwall.

They plodded along, and there was no sign of Hal. Darkness began to sift down into the forest. Would they keep walking all the night, Cornwall wondered. Was there any end to it? There was no letup in the storm. The slanting rain, coming from the northwest, slashed at his face. The wind seemed to be growing colder and sharper.

Hal materialized in the darkness ahead, moving like a dark ghost out of the darkness of the tree trunks. They stopped, standing in a knot, waiting for him to come up to them.

"I smelled smoke," he said, "and tracked it down. It could have been Beckett and his men, camping for the night; it could have been a charcoal pit or a farmer's homestead. When you smell smoke, you find out what it is."

"Now," said Gib, "that you have sufficiently impressed us, tell us what it was."

"It is an inn," said Hal.

"That does us no good," said Gib. "They'd never let us in, not a marsh-man and a hill-man, a goblin, and a coon."

"They would let Mark in," said Hal. "If he gets too wet and cold, his arm will stiffen up and he'll have no end of trouble."

Cornwall shook his head. "They wouldn't let me in, either. They'd ask to see the color of my coin and I have no coin. In any case, we stick together. I wouldn't enter where they'd not welcome all of you."

"There is a stable," said Hal. "Once it is dark, we can shelter there, be out before the dawn. No one would ever know."

"You found no other shelter?" asked Cornwall. "No cave?"

"Nothing," said Hal. "I think it has to be the stable."

12

There was one horse in the stable. It nickered softly at them when they came through the door.

"The innkeeper's horse," said Hal. "A sorry bag of bones."

"Then there are no guests," said Cornwall.

"None," said Hal. "I peered through the window. Mine host is roaring drunk. He is throwing stools and crockery about. He is in a vicious temper. There is no one there, and he must take it out on the furniture and pottery."

"Perhaps, after all," said Gib, "we are better in the stable."

"I think so," said Cornwall. "The loft, perhaps. There appears to be hay up there. We can burrow into it against the cold."

He reached out a hand and shook the pole ladder that ran up into the loft.

"It seems solid enough," he said.

Coon already was clambering up it.

"He knows where to go," said Hal, delighted.

"And I follow him," said Cornwall.

He climbed the ladder until his head came above the opening into the loft. The storage space, he saw, was small, with clumps of hay here and there upon the floor.

Ahead of him Coon was clambering over the piles of hay and, suddenly, just ahead of him, a mound of hay erupted and a shrill scream split the air.

With a surge Cornwall cleared the ladder, felt the rough boards of the hay mow bending and shifting treacherously beneath his feet. Ahead of him the hay-covered figure beat the air with flailing arms and kept on screaming.

He leaped forward swiftly, reaching for the screamer. He sweated, imagining mine host bursting from the inn and racing toward the stable, adding to the hullabaloo that would arouse the countryside, if there were anyone in this howling wilderness of a countryside to rouse.

The screamer tried to duck away, but he reached out and grabbed her, pulled her tight against him, lifted his free hand and clamped it hard against her mouth. The screaming was shut off. Teeth closed on a finger and he jerked it free, slapped her hard, and clamped down the hand across her mouth. She did not bite again.

"Keep quiet," he told her. "I'll take the hand away. I do not mean to hurt you."

She was small and soft.

"Will you be quiet?" he asked.

She bobbed her head against his chest to say she would. Behind him Cornwall heard the others scrabbling up the ladder.

"There are others here," he said. "They will not hurt you, either. Don't scream."

He took the hand away.

"What's the matter, Mark?" asked Oliver.

"A woman. She was hiding up here. Was that what you were doing, miss?"

"Yes," she said. "Hiding."

The loft was not quite dark. Heavy twilight still filtered through the louvered windows set at each end of the gables.

The woman stepped away from Cornwall, then at the sight of Oliver, shrank back against him. A frightened breath caught in her throat.

"It's all right," he said. "Oliver is a very friendly goblin. He is a rafter goblin. You know what a rafter goblin is?"

She shook her head. "There was an animal," she said.

"That was Coon. He's all right, too."

"Wouldn't hurt a flea," said Hal. "He is so downright friendly that it is disgusting."

"We are fugitives," said Cornwall. "Or very close to fugitives. But non-dangerous fugitives. This is Hal, and over there is Gib. Gib is a marsh-man. Hal is hill people."

She was shivering, but she stepped away from him.

"And you?" she asked. "Who are you?"

"You can call me Mark. I am a student."

"A scholar," said Oliver, with fidgety precision. "Not a student, but a scholar. Six years at Wyalusing."

"We seek shelter from the storm," said Cornwall. "We would have gone to the inn, but they would not have taken us. Besides, we have no money."

"He is drunk," said the girl, "and smashing up the furniture. Madam is hiding in the cellar and I ran out here. I was afraid of him. I've always been afraid of him."

"You work at the inn?"

"I am," she said with some bitterness, "the wench, the scullery maid, the slops girl."

She sat down suddenly in the hay. "I don't care what happens," she said. "I am not going back. I will run away. I don't know what will happen to me, but I'll run away. I will stay no longer at the inn. He is always drunk and madam is handy with a faggot and no one needs to put up with that."

"You," said Oliver, "can run away with us. What matter if there be one more of us? A brave but a sorry company, and there's always room for another."

"We go far," said Hal, "and the way is hard."

"No harder than the inn," she said.

"There is no one at the inn?" asked Cornwall.

"Nor likely to be," she said. "Not on a night like this. Not that there is ever any crowd. A few travelers now and then. Charcoal burners and woodcutters in to get a drink, although not too often, for they seldom have the penny."

"Then," said Gib, "we can sleep till morning with no fear of disturbance."

Coon, who had been investigating the crannies of the loft, came back and sat down, wrapping his tail around his feet.

"One of us will have to stand guard for a time," said Cornwall, "then wake another one. We'll have to take turns throughout the night. I will volunteer for the first watch if it's agreeable with the rest of you."

Gib said to the serving wench, "Will you be coming with us?"

"I don't think it wise," said Cornwall.

"Wise or not," she said, "I will leave as soon as it's light enough to travel. With you or by myself. It makes no difference to me. I'm not staying here."

"I think it best," said Hal, "that she travel with us. These woods are no place for a human girl alone."

"If you are to travel with us," said Oliver, "we should know your name."

"My name is Mary," said the girl.

"Does anyone want to eat?" asked Gib. "I have some cold corn-bread in my knapsack and a bag of shelled walnuts. Not much, but something we can chew on."

Hal hissed at them.

"What's the matter?"

"I thought I heard something."

They listened. There was only the muffled patter of the rain and the mutter of the wind underneath the eaves.

"I hear nothing," Cornwall said.

"Wait. There it was again."

They listened and it came again, a strange clicking sound.

"That's a horse," said Hal. "A shod horse, the metal of the shoe striking on a stone."

It came again and with it came the faint sound of voices. Then the sound of the stable door creaking open and the shuffle and the thump of feet as a horse was led inside. Voices mumbled.

"This is a foul place," said one whining voice.

"It is better than the open," said another. "Only a little better, but this is a noisome night."

"The innkeeper is drunk," said the other.

"We can find our own food and beds," said his fellow.

More horses were led in. Leather creaked as saddles were taken off. The horses stamped. One of them whinnied.

"Find a fork and get up that ladder," someone said. "Throw down some hay."

Cornwall looked quickly about. There was no place to hide. They could burrow into the hay, of course, but not with someone in the loft, armed with a fork, questing in the darkness for hay to be thrown down the chute.

"All at once," he muttered. "All of us will have to make the break. As soon as he shows above the ladder."

He turned to the girl. "You understand?" he asked. "As fast as you can, then run."

She nodded.

Feet scraped on the ladder and Cornwall reached for the hilt of his sword. A flurry of flying hay went past him and out of the corner of his eye he saw Coon, leaping, spread-eagled, at the head that appeared above the opening into the loft. Coon landed on the head and there was a muffled shriek. Cornwall leaped for the ladder, went swarming down it. Halfway down he caught a glimpse of a fork, its handle lodged in the floor below, its tines spearing up at him, and twisted frantically to one side to miss them. At the bottom of the ladder was a whirling fury of wild motion as the man who had been climbing the ladder fought to dislodge Coon, who was using his claws with terrible execution on his victim's head and face. Even before his feet hit the floor Cornwall snapped out his left hand and, grasping the fork, jerked it free.

Three yelling shapes were charging from the front of the barn at him, metal gleaming as one of them drew a sword. Cornwall's left arm came back, carrying the fork backward until the metal of its tines scrapped against his jawbone. Then he hurled it, straight at the bellowing shapes that were bearing down on him. Sword held straight before him, he charged to meet them. His shield was still on his back; there had not been the time to transfer it to his arm. And a good thing, too, he thought in a split second of realization. With it on his arm, he never could have grabbed the fork, which, if it had stayed, would have impaled one of the others tumbling down the ladder.

In front of him one of the three shapes was rearing back with a shriek of surprise and pain, clawing at the fork buried in his chest. Cornwall caught the glitter of metal aimed at his head and ducked instinctively, jerking up his sword. He felt his blade bite into flesh, and at the same instant a massive blow on the shoulder that momentarily staggered him. He jerked his sword free and, reeling side-wise, fell against the rump of a horse. The horse lashed out with a foot and caught him a glancing blow in the belly. Doubled up, he went down on his hands and knees and crawled, gasping, the breath knocked out of him.

Someone caught him under the arms and jerked him half erect. He saw, with some surprise, that the sword had not been knocked out of his hand; he still had a grip on it.

"Out of here!" a voice gasped at him. "They'll all be down on us."

Still bent over from the belly kick, he made his legs move under him, wobbling toward the door. He stumbled over a prostrate form, regained his feet and ran again. He felt rain lash into his face and knew he was outdoors. Silhouetted against the lighted windows of the inn, he saw men running toward him, and off a little to his right, the kneeling figure of a bowman who, almost unconcernedly, released arrow after arrow. Screams and curses sounded in the darkness and some of the running men were stumbling, fighting to wrench loose the arrows that bristled in their bodies.

"Come on," said Gib's voice. "We all are here. Hal will hold them off."

Gib grabbed his arm, turning him and giving him a push, and he was running again, straightening up, breathing easier, with just a dull pain in his midriff where the horse had kicked him.

"This is far enough," said Gib. "Let's pull together now. We can't get separated. You here, Mary?"

"Yes, I'm here," said Mary in a frightened voice.

"Oliver?"

"Here," said Oliver.

"Coon? Coon, where the hell are you?"

Another voice said, "Don't worry about Old Coon. He'll hunt us up."

"That you, Hal?"

"It's me. They won't try to follow. They've had enough for one night.

Cornwall suddenly sat down. He felt the wetness of ground soak into his breeches. He struggled to slip the sword back into the scabbard.

"You guys were all right in that barn," said Hal. "Mark got one of them with a pitchfork and another with the sword. The third Gib took care of with his ax. I never had a chance until we got outside."

"You were doing well enough when I saw you," Gib told him.

"And don't forget Coon," said Cornwall. "He led the attack and took his man out of the fighting."

"Will you tell me," Gib asked plaintively, "exactly how it happened. I'm not a fighting man. . . ."

"None of us is a fighting man," said Cornwall. "I never was in a fight before in all my life. A few tavern brawls at the university, but never in a fight. Never where it counted."

"Let's get out of here," said Hal. "We have to build some distance, and once we get started, we might as well stay walking. We won't find a place to stop. Everyone grab hold of hands and don't let loose. I'll lead the way, but we have to take it easy. We can't move too fast. We can't go falling down a cliff or bumping into trees. If one of you loses hold of hands or falls, yell out and everyone will stop."

13

Hal crouched in the clump of birches and stared at what the first morning light revealed. The stable and the inn were gone. Where they once had stood lay heaps of embers, smoke tainting the sharp air with an acrid bitterness, rising in thin tendrils.

The rain had stopped and the sky was clear, but water still dripped from the branches of the birches. It would be another splendid autumn day, Hal told himself, but it still was cold. He crossed his arms and put his hands beneath his armpits to warm them.

Not moving, he examined the scene before him, ears tuned for the slightest sound that might spell danger. But the danger now, it seemed, was gone. The men who had done this work had left.

Far off a bluejay screamed and up the hill a squirrel made a skittering sound as it scampered through the fallen leaves. Nothing else made a sound; nothing else was stirring.

His eyes went over the ground inch by inch, looking for the unusual, for something that might be out of place. There seemed to be nothing. The only thing unusual were the ashes where the stable and the inn had stood.

Moving cautiously, he left the birches and scouted up the hill. He stopped behind a huge oak and, shielded by it, peered around its bole. His higher position on the hill now revealed a slope of ground on the opposite side of the inn that had been masked before. On the slope of ground something most unusual was taking place. A huge gray wolf was digging furiously while two others sat leisurely on their haunches, watching as he dug. The wolf was digging in what appeared to be a patch of raw earth and beyond the patch in which he dug were others, slightly mounded.

Hal instinctively lifted his bow and reached over his shoulder for an arrow, then drew back his hand and settled down to watch. There was no point, he mused, in further killing; there had already been killing. And the wolves were engaged in a practice that was quite normal for them. There was meat beneath those mounds and they were digging for it.

He counted the mounds. There were five at least, possibly six; he could not be sure. Three in the stable, he thought, or had there been four? Depending on whether it had been three or four, then his arrows had accounted for one at least, possibly as many as three. He grimaced, thinking of it. The fight had not been that one-sided, he reminded himself; rather, it had been a matter of surprise and simple luck. He wondered, if he and the others had not attacked, would there have been a fight at all? But that was all past and done; no single act could be recalled. The die had been cast when Coon had made his spread-eagled leap at the head of the man who climbed the ladder. Considering the circumstances, they had come out of it far better than could have been expected, with Mark the only one who bore the scars of battle, a sore shoulder, where the flat of a sword had struck him, and a sore belly, where a horse had kicked him.

He squatted beside the tree and watched the wolves. The fact that they were there, he knew, meant that no one else was around.

He rose and stepped around the tree, scuffling in the leaves. The wolves swiveled their heads toward him and leaped to their feet. He scuffled leaves again, and the wolves moved like three gray shadows, disappearing in the woods.

He strode down the hill and circled the two piles of embers. The heat that still radiated from them was welcome in the chilly morning, and he stood for a moment to soak up some of it.

In the muddy earth he found the tracks of men and horses and wondered about the innkeeper and his wife. The serving wench, he recalled, said that the goodwife had been hiding in the cellar from her drunken lord. Could it be that she'd still been there when the inn was fired? If that were so, her charred body must be down among the embers, for the place would have blazed like tinder, and there'd have been no chance to get out.

He followed the trace left by the men and horses down the hill to where it joined the trail and saw that the company had gone on north and west. He went back up the hill, had a look at the raw wetness of the graves, again circled the piles of embers for some clue, wondering what manner of men could have done such a thing, afraid that he might know.

He stood for a moment, nagged by uneasiness. Then he went back down the hill and followed the trail that the company had taken north and west, keeping well up the hillside from it, his ears cocked for the slightest sound, examining each stretch of trail below him before he moved ahead.

A couple of miles away he found the innkeeper, the man he had glimpsed through the window of the inn the night before, smashing crockery and breaking up the furniture. He swung at the end of a short rope tied to the limb of a massive oak tree that leaned out from the hillside to overhang the trail. His hands were tied behind him and his head was twisted strangely by the pressure of the rope. He twirled back and forth at the faint stirring of the breeze. And he dangled; he dangled horribly. A chickadee was perched on one shoulder, a tiny, innocent mite of a gray-white bird, picking at the blood and froth that had run from the corner of the mouth.

Later on, Hal knew, there would be other birds.

He stood in the mud of the trail and looked up at the dangling, twirling man and felt, gathering in his mind, a vague sense of horror and of melancholy.

Leaving the man and the oak, he scouted up the trail and from the tracks he saw that now the mounted company was in something of a hurry. The hoofmarks of the shod horses dug deep into the mud, leaving sharp, incisive tracks. They had been moving at a gallop.

He left the trail and angled back up the hill, studying the conformation of the land, picking up the foggy landmarks he had impressed upon his mind.

So he finally came, slipping through the trees and brush, to the small rock shelter he and his companions had found the night before, after long stumbling through the wet and dark, a few hours before the first hint of dawn.

Oliver, the rafter goblin, and Coon slept far back from the overhang, in the deeper recesses of the shelter, huddled close together for the sake of shared warmth. The other three sat close together toward the front, wrapped in blankets against the chill. He was almost upon them before they saw him.

"So you're back," said Gib. "We wondered what had happened. Can we light a fire?"

Hal shook his head. "We travel fast," he said. "We travel fast and far. We must be out of here."

"But I went out," objected Gib, "and got dry fuel, dug from the heart of a fallen tree. It will give little smoke. We are cold and hungry. . . ."

"No," said Hal. "The country will be up. The inn and stable burned. No sign of the goodwife who was hiding in the cellar, but mine host is hanging from a tree. Someone will find soon what happened, and before they do we must be miles from here."

"I'll shake the goblin and Coon awake," said Gib, "and we'll be on our way."

14

It had been a punishing day. They had stopped for nothing, pushing ahead as fast as they could manage. There had been only one habitation, the hut of a woodchopper, that they had had to circle. They had not stopped to eat or rest. Cornwall had worried about the girl, but she had managed to keep up with the rest of them with seemingly little effort and made no complaint.

"You may regret throwing in with us," Cornwall said once. But she had shaken her head, saying nothing, conserving her breath for the grim business of clambering up and down the hills, racing down the more open ridges.

Finally, they had come to rest, with early darkness closing in. No rock shelter this time, but the dry bed of a little stream, in a recess where, in spring freshets, a waterfall had carved out a bowl that was protected on three sides by high banks, leaving open only the channel through which the stream ran from the little pool beneath the falls.

Through the centuries, the water, plunging over a ledge of hard limestone, had scoured out all earth and softer shale down to the surface of a harder sandstone stratum. In the center of the bowl stood the small pool of water, but around the pool lay the dry surface of the sandstone.

They had built their fire close against the upstream wall, which was overhung for several feet by the limestone ledge. There had been little talk until, famished, they had wolfed down their food, but now they sat around the blaze and began to talk.

"You feel rather certain," Cornwall asked of Hal, "that the company was that of Beckett?"

"I cannot know, of course," said Hal, "but who else would it be? The horses were shod and a pack train does not shoe its horses and a train would use mostly mules. There were no mules in this bunch, only horses. And who else, I ask you, would visit such terrible, senseless vengeance upon the innocent?"

"They could not have known they were innocent," said Cornwall.

"Of course not," said Hal. "But the point is that they presumed the guilt. They probably tortured the innkeeper and when he could tell them nothing, hanged him. Mine goodwife, more than likely died when they burned the inn with her still in the cellar."

He looked at Mary, across the fire from him. "I am sorry, miss," he said.

She put up a hand and ran her fingers through her hair. "There is no need for you to be," she said. "I mourn for them as I would any human being. It is not good to die in such a manner and I feel sorrow at it, but they, the two of them, meant less than nothing to me. Were it not uncharitable, I could even say they deserved what happened to them. I was afraid of him. There was not a moment of the time I spent at the inn I was not afraid of him. And the woman was no better. With but little cause, other than her bad temper, she'd take a stick of firewood to me. I could show you bruises that still are black and blue."

"Why, then, did you stay?" asked Gib.

"Because I had nowhere else to go. But when you found me in the loft, I had decided I would go. By morning light I would have been gone. It was by sheer good luck that I found you to travel with."

"You say that Beckett travels north and west," Cornwall said to Hal. "What happens if we reach the Bishop of the Tower and find him and his men there ahead of us? Even if he has been there and gone, he will have warned the bishop of us and we'll find scant welcome if, in fact, we're not clapped into irons."

"Mark," said Hal, "I think there is little danger of it. A few miles north of where mine host was hanged, the trail branches, the left fork leading to the Tower, the right into the Wasteland. Beckett, I am sure, would have taken the right fork. I should have followed the trail to see, but it seemed to me important we should be on our way as soon as we could manage."

"The Wasteland?" Mary asked. "He is heading for the Wasteland?"

Hal nodded.

She looked around the circle at them. "And you, as well, you go into the Wasteland?"

"Why do you ask?" asked Oliver.

"Because I myself, in my infancy, may have come from the Wasteland."

"You?"

"I do not know," she said. "I do not remember. I was so young I have no memory or almost no memory. There are, of course, certain memories. A great sprawling house sitting on a hilltop. People who must have been my parents. Strange playmates. But whether this was the Wasteland, I do not know. My parents—well, not my parents, but the couple that took me in and cared for me, told me how they found me, toddling down a path that came out of the Wasteland. They lived near the Wasteland, two honest old people who were very poor and had never had a child they could call their own. They took me in and kept me, and I loved them as if they had been my parents."

They sat in silence, staring at her. Finally she spoke again.

"They worked so hard and yet they had so little. There were few neighbors, and those were far away. It was too near the Wasteland. People were not comfortable living so near the Wasteland. Yet it never bothered us. Nothing ever bothered us. We grew some corn and wheat. We raised potatoes and a garden. There was wood for chopping. There was a cow, but the cow died one winter of the murrain and there was no way to get another. We had pigs. My father—I always called him father, even if he wasn't—would kill a bear or deer and trap other creatures for their furs. He would trade the furs for little pigs—such cute little pigs. We kept them in the house for fear of wolves until they had grown bigger. I can remember my father coming home with a little pig tucked underneath each arm. He had carried them for miles."

"But you did not stay," said Cornwall. "Happy, you said, and yet you did not stay."

"Last winter," she said, "was cruel. Both snow and cold were deep.

And they were old. Old and feeble. They took the coughing sickness and they died. I did what I could, but it was little. She died first and he next day. I built a fire to thaw the ground and chopped out a grave for them, the two of them together. Two shallow, far too shallow, for the ground was hard. After that, I couldn't stay. You understand, don't you, that I couldn't stay?"

Cornwall nodded. "So you went to the inn."

"That is right," she said. "They were glad enough to have me, although you never would have known it from their treatment of me. I was young and strong and willing to work. But they beat me just the same."

"You'll have a chance to rest when we get to the Tower," said Cornwall. "To decide what you want to do. Is there anyone who knows what kind of place the Tower might be?"

"Not much of anything," said Hal. "An old defense post against the Wasteland, now abandoned. Once a military post, but now there is no military there. There is the bishop only, although why he's needed there, or what he does, no one pretends to know. A few servants, perhaps. A farm or two. That would be all."

"You have not answered me," said Mary. "Do you go into the Wasteland?"

"Some of us," said Cornwall. "I go. I suppose Oliver as well. There is no stopping him. If I could, I would."

"I was in at the first of it," said Oliver. "I'll be in at the end of it."

"How far?" asked Gib. "How long before we reach the Tower?"

"Three days," said Hal. "We should be there in three days."

15

The Bishop of the Tower was an old man. Not as old, Gib thought, as the hermit, but an old man. The robes he wore, once had been resplendent, with cloth of gold and richest silk, but now they were worn and tattered after many years of use. But, looking at the man, one forgot the time-worn, moth-ravaged robes. A depth of compassion robed him, but there was a sense of power as well, a certain feeling of ruthlessness—a warrior bishop grown old with peace and church. His face was thin, almost skeletal, but fill out those cheeks and broaden out the peaked nose, and one could find the flat, hard lines of a fighting man. His head was covered with wispy white hair so sparse it seemed to rise of itself and float in the bitter breeze that came blowing through the cracks and crevices of the time-ruined tower. The fire that burned in the fireplace did little to drive back the cold. The place was niggardly furnished—a rough hewn table, behind which the bishop sat on a ramshackle chair, an indifferent bed in one corner, a trestle table for eating, with benches down either side of it. There was no carpeting on the cold stone floor. Improvised shelving held a couple of dozen books and beneath the shelving were piled a few scrolls, some of them mouse-eaten.

The bishop lifted the leather-bound book off the table and, opening it, riffled slowly through the pages. He closed it and placed it to one side. He said to Gib, "My brother in Christ, you say he passed in peace?"

"He knew that he was dying," Gib said. "He had no fear. He was feeble, for he was very old. . . ."

"Yes, old," said the bishop. "I remember him from the time I was a boy. He was grown then. Thirty, perhaps, although I don't remember, if I ever knew. Perhaps I never knew. Even then he walked in the footsteps of the Lord. I, myself, at his age was a man of war, the captain of the garrison that stood on this very spot and watched against the Wasteland hordes. It was not until I was much older and the garrison had been withdrawn, there having been many years of peace, that I became a man of God. You say my old friend lived in the love of the people?"

"There was no one who knew him who did not love him," said Gib. "He was a friend to all. To the People of the Marsh, the People of the Hills, the gnomes. . ."

"And none of you," said the bishop, "of his faith. Perhaps of no faith at all."

"That, your worship, is right. Mostly of no faith at all. If I understand rightly what you mean by faith."

The bishop shook his head. "That would be so like him. So entirely like him. He never asked a man what his faith might be. I distrust that he ever really cared. He may have erred in this way, but, if so, it was erring beautifully. And I am impressed. Such a crowd of you to bring me what he sent. Not that you aren't welcome. Visitors to this lonely place are always welcome. Here we have no commerce with the world."

"Your grace," said Cornwall, "Gib of the Marshes is the only one of us who is here concerned with bringing you the items from the hermit. Hal of the Hollow Tree agreed to guide us here."

"And milady?" asked the bishop.

Cornwall said stiffly, "She is under our protection."

"You, most carefully, it seems to me, say nothing of yourself."

"Myself and the goblin," Cornwall told him, "are on a mission to the Wasteland. And if you wonder about Coon, he is a friend of Hal's."

"I had not wondered about the coon," said the bishop, rather testily, "although I have no objection to him. He seems a cunning creature. A most seemly pet."

"He is no pet, your grace," said Hal. "He is a friend."

The bishop chose to disregard the correction, but spoke to Cornwall, "The Wasteland, did you say? Not many men go these days into the Wasteland. Take my word for it, it is not entirely safe. Your motivation must be strong."

"He is a scholar," said Oliver. "He seeks truth. He goes to make a study."

"That is good," the bishop said. "No chasing after worldly treasure. To seek knowledge is better for the soul, although I fear it holds no charm against the dangers you will meet."

"Your grace," said Cornwall, "you have looked at the book . . ."

"Yes," the bishop said. "A goodly book. And most valuable. A lifetime's work. Hundreds of recipes for medicines that can cure the ills of mankind. Many of them, I have no doubt, known to no one but the hermit. But now that you have brought me the book, in time known to everyone."

"There is another item," Cornwall reminded him, "that the hermit sent you."

The bishop looked flustered. "Yes, yes," he said. "I quite forgot. These days I find it easy to forget. Age does nothing for one's memory."

He reached out and took up the ax, wrapped in cloth. Carefully he unwrapped it, stared at it transfixed once he had revealed it. He said nothing but turned it over and over, examining it, then laid it gently in front of him.

He raised his head and stared at them, one by one, then fixed his gaze on Gib. "Do you know what you have here?" he asked. "Did the hermit tell you?"

"He told me it was a fist ax."

"Do you know what a fist ax is?"

"No, your grace, I don't."

"And you?" the bishop asked of Cornwall.

"Yes, your grace. It is an ancient tool. There are those who say . . ."

"Yes, yes, I know. There are always those who say. There are always those who question. I wonder why the hermit had it, why he kept it so carefully and passed it on at death. It is not the sort of thing that a holy man would prize. It belongs to the Old Ones."

"The Old Ones?" Cornwall asked.

"Yes, the Old Ones. You have never heard of them?"

"But I have," said Cornwall. "They are the ones I seek. They are why I am going to the Wasteland. Can you tell if they do exist, or are they only myth?"

"They exist," the bishop said, "and this ax should be returned to them. At sometime someone must have stolen it. . . ."

"I can take it/' Cornwall said. "I'll undertake to see that it is returned to them."

"No," said Gib. "The hermit entrusted it to me. If it should be returned, I am the one—"

"But it's not necessary for you to go," said Cornwall.

"Yes, it is," said Gib. "You will let me travel with you?"

"If Gib is going, so am I," said Hal. "We have been friends too long to let him go into danger without my being at his side."

"You are all set, it seems," the bishop said, "to go marching stoutly to your deaths. With the exception of milady . . ."

"I am going, too," she said.

"And so am I," said a voice from the doorway.

At the sound of it Gib swung around. "Sniveley," he yelled, "what are you doing here?"

16

The bishop, when he was alone, ate frugally—a bowl of cornmeal mush, or perhaps a bit of bacon. By feeding his body poorly, he felt that he fed his soul and at the same time set an example for his tiny flock. But, a trencherman by nature, he was glad of guests, who at once gave him an opportunity to gorge himself and uphold the good name of the Church for its hospitality.

There had been a suckling pig, resting on a platter with an apple in its mouth, a haunch of venison, a ham, a saddle of mutton, a brace of geese, and a peacock pie. There had been sweet cakes and pies, hot breads, a huge dish of fruit and nuts, a plum pudding laced with brandy, and four wines.

Now the bishop pushed back from the table and wiped his mouth with a napkin of fine linen.

"Are you sure," he asked his guests, "that there is nothing else you might require? I am certain that the cooks. . ."

"Your grace," said Sniveley, "you have all but foundered us. There is none of us accustomed to such rich food, nor in such quantities. In all my life I have never sat at so great a feast."

"Ah, well," the bishop said, "we have few visitors. It behooves us, when they do appear, to treat them as royally as our poor resources can afford."

He settled back in his chair and patted his belly. "Someday," he said, "this great and unseemly appetite of mine will be the end of me. I have never been able to settle quite comfortably into the role of churchman, although I do my best. I mortify the flesh and discipline the spirit, but the hungers rage within me. Age does not seem to quench them. Much as I may frown upon the folly of what you intend to do, I find within myself the ache to go along with you. I suppose it may be this place, a place of warriors and brave deeds. Peaceful as it may seem now, for centuries it was the outpost of the empire against the peoples of the Wasteland. The tower now is half tumbled down, but once it was a great watch tower and before it ran a wall, close to the river, that has almost disappeared, its stones being carted off by the country people to construct ignoble fences, henhouses and stables. Once men manned the tower and wall, standing as a human wall of flesh against the encroachments and the depredations of that unholy horde which dwells within the Wasteland."

"Your grace," said Sniveley, far too gently, "your history, despite the centuries, is too recent. There was a day when the humans and the Brotherhood lived as neighbors and in fellowship. It was not until the humans began chopping down the forest, failing to spare the sacred trees and the enchanted glens, not until they began building roads and cities, that there was animosity. You cannot, with clear conscience, talk of encroachments and depredations, for it was the humans—"

"Man had the right to do what he wished with the land," the bishop said. "He had the holy right to put it to best use. Ungodly creatures such as—"

"Not ungodly," said Sniveley. "We had our sacred groves until you cut them down, the fairies had their dancing greens until you turned them into fields. Even such simple little things as fairies . . ."

"Your grace," said Cornwall, "I fear we are outnumbered. There are but two of us who can make a pretense of being Christian, although I count the rest as true and noble friends. I am glad they have elected to go into the Wasteland with me, although I am somewhat concerned . . ."

"I suppose that you are right," said the bishop, more good-naturedly than might have been expected. "It ill behooves any one at this jovial board to contend with one another. There are other matters that we should discuss. I understand, Sir Scholar, that you seek the Old Ones out of the curiosity of the intellect. I suppose this comes from the reading you have done."

"Reading most painfully come by," said Oliver. "I watched him many nights, hunched above a table in the library, reading ancient scripts, taking down the books that had not been touched for centuries and blowing off the dust that had accumulated, reading by the feeble light of a too-short candle, since poverty dictated he must use them to their bitter end. Shivering in the winter, since you must know that all the buildings of the university, and perhaps the library most of all, are ill-constructed old stone piles through which the wind has little trouble blowing."

"And, pray," the bishop said to Cornwall, "tell us what you found."

"Not a great deal," said Cornwall. "A sentence here, another sentence there. Enough to convince me that the Old Ones are not, as many think, entirely myth. There is a book, a very thin book, and most unsatisfactory, which purports to instruct one in the language of the Old Ones. I can speak that language, the little that there is of it. I do not know if it is truth or not. I do not know if there is a language or not. No niceties at all, no nuances to the thought that it conveys. I cannot be convinced, however, that such a work could be entirely without basis. Surely the man who wrote it thought the Old Ones had a language."

"There is no clue as to why he might have thought so? He does not explain how he learned the language?"

"He does not," said Cornwall. "I go on faith alone."

"It is not," the bishop said, "when you give it thought, an entirely bad reason for the going."

"Good enough for me," said Cornwall. "Perhaps not good enough for others."

"And it is good enough for me," said Oliver. "It is an excuse for me, if nothing else. I could not spend my life as a rafter goblin. Now that I look back on it. I was getting nowhere."

"Perhaps," said Cornwall, "I can understand you, Oliver. There's something about a university that gets into the blood. It is a place not of the world; it partakes of a certain fantasy. It is, in many ways, not entirely sane. The reaching after knowledge becomes a purpose that bears no relationship to reality. But Gib and Hal I worry over. I could take along the ax."

"You think so," Gib told him, "because you did not know the hermit. He did so much for all of us and we did so little for him. We'd look up at the craggy bluff where he had his cave and knowing he was there made the world seem right. I can't tell you why it was, but that was the way of it. I sat with him the last hour of his life. I pulled up the blanket to shield him from the world once the life was gone. I built the wall of stone to keep away the wolves. There's one thing more I must do for him. No one else, you understand; I'm the one to do it. He put the trust into my hands, and I must see it carried out."

The bishop stirred uncomfortably. "I can see," he said, "that there's nothing I can do to stop the rest of you from going out to get your heads smashed most horribly, and it might be a mercy if the head smashing was all you'd have to suffer. But I cannot understand why the sweet child, Mary, must insist—"

"Your grace," said Mary, "you do not know because I have not told you. When I was no more than a toddler, I came stumbling down a path and an old couple took me in and raised me as their own. I have told the others this, but I did not tell them that I've wondered many times where I might have come from. The path, you see, came out of the Wasteland. . . ."

"You cannot think," the bishop said, aghast, "that you came out of the Wasteland. It makes no sense, at all."

"At times," said Mary, "I have a certain memory. An old house high upon a hill and strange playmates that plead to be recognized, but I cannot recognize them. I do not know who or what they were."

"You do not need to know," the bishop said.

"It seems to me, your grace, I do," said Mary. "And if I do not find out now, I will never know."

"Let her go," said Sniveley. "Quit this pestering of her. She goes in goodly company and has every right to go. Perhaps more right than any of the rest of us."

"And you, Sniveley," said Hal, trying to speak lightly. "I imagine it will be old home week for you."

Sniveley snorted. "I could not sleep of nights. Thinking of the hand I had in it, and how destiny had so unerringly guided my hand to take a part in it I forged the sword that the scholar carries. Fate must have foreordained the shaping of that sword. Otherwise, why would there have been this single pocket of the purest ore? Why the pocket of it in a drift that otherwise was acceptable, but of much poorer grade? It was placed there for a purpose, for there is nothing ever done without a purpose. And I could not put out of my mind the feeling that the purpose was the sword."

"If so," said Cornwall, "it was badly placed. I should be wearing no such sword. I am not a swordsman."

Hal said, "You did all right that night back in the stable."

"What is this?" the bishop asked. "What about a stable? You were brawling in a stable?"

Cornwall said, "We had not told you. I think we felt we should not tell you. We fear we have fallen greatly out of favor with a man named Lawrence Beckett. You may have heard of him."

The bishop made a face. "Indeed, I have," he said. "If you had sat down and thought and planned and really put your mind to it in the picking of an enemy, you could have done no better than Beckett. I never have met the man, but his reputation has preceded him. He is a ruthless monster. If you are at cross-purposes with him, perhaps it is just as well you go into the Wasteland."

"But he is going there as well," said Gib.

The bishop heaved himself straight up in his chair. "You had not told me this. Why did you not tell me this?"

"One reason I can think of," said Cornwall, "is that Beckett is of the Inquisition."

"And you thought, perhaps, because this is so, he stands in the high regard of everyone in Holy Mother Church?"

"I suppose we did think so," said Cornwall.

"The Church is far flung," the bishop said, "and in it is the room for many different kinds of men. There is room for so saintly a personality as our late-lamented hermit and room as well, lamentably, for sundry kinds of rascals. We are too big and too widespread to police ourselves as well as might be wished. There are men the Church would be better off without, and one of the chief of these is Beckett. He uses the cloak of the Inquisition for his own bloodthirsty purposes; he has made it a political arm rather than ecclesiastical. And you say that now he is heading for the Wasteland?"

"We think he is," Hal said.

"We have had years of peace," the bishop said. "Years ago the military was withdrawn from this outpost because there seemed no need of it. For decades there had been no trouble, and there has been no trouble since the soldiers were withdrawn. But now I do not know. Now I fear the worst. A spark is all that's needed to touch the Borderland to flame and Beckett may be that very spark. Let me tell you with all the force at my command that with Beckett loose now is not the time to venture in the Wasteland."

"Nevertheless," said Gib, "we're going."

"I suppose so," said the bishop. "You all are addlepated and it's a waste of honest breath to try to talk with you. A few years younger and I'd join you to protect you from your folly. But since age and occupation bar me from it, I still shall do my part. It is not meet that you should go walking to your deaths. There shall be horses for you and whatever otherwise you need."

17

The noses of Sniveley and Oliver were greatly out of joint. They had been dealt a grave injustice and had been the victims of heartless discrimination; they had to share a horse.

"Look at me," said Hal. "I am sharing mine with Coon."

"But Coon's your pet," said Oliver.

"No, he's not," said Hal. "He is my friend. The two of us together own a tree back home. We live there together. We share and share alike."

"You only took him up," said Sniveley, "so he wouldn't get wet when we crossed the river. He won't ride with you all the time. He doesn't even like to ride."

"The horse," said Hal, "is his as much as mine."

"I do not think," said Gib, "the horse shares in that opinion. He looks skittish to me. He's never been ridden by a coon."

They had crossed the river ford, the old historic ford once guarded by the tower. But as they wheeled about once the river had been crossed, the tower and wall that flanked it on either side seemed rather puny structures, no longer guarding anything, no longer military, with all the formidability gone out of them, age-encrusted ruins that were no more than an echo of the time when they had stood foursquare against invasion from the Wasteland. Here and there trees grew atop the wall, while the massive stones of the tower were masked and softened by the clinging vines that had gained footholds in the masonry.

Tiny figures, unrecognizable at that distance, grouped together on one section of the ruined wall, raised matchstick arms to them in a gesture of farewell.

"There still is time," Cornwall said to Mary, "to turn back and cross the river. This is no place for you. There may be rough days ahead."

She shook her head stubbornly. "What do you think would happen to me back there? A scullery wench again? I'll not be a scullery wench again."

Cornwall wheeled his horse around, and it plodded slowly along the faint path that angled up the low hill that rose above the river. Once the river had been crossed, the character of the land had changed. South of the river, thick forests crawled up the flanks of massive bluffs, gashed by steep ravines. Here the hills were lower, and the forest, while it still remained, was not so heavy. There were groves of trees covering many acres, but there were open spaces here and there and, looking to the east, Cornwall could see that some of the bluffs on this northern side were bald.

He could have wished, he told himself, that there might have been a map—any sort of map, even a poor one with many errors in it, that might have given some idea of where they might be going. He had talked with the bishop about it, but so far as the bishop knew there was no map and had never been. The soldiery that through the years had guarded the ford had done no more than guard. They had never made so much as a single foray across the river. Any forays that occurred had been made by the people of the Wasteland and these, apparently, had been very few. Duty at the tower had been dreary duty, unbroken, for the most part, by any kind of action. The only people, it seemed, who had ever ventured into the Wasteland had been occasional travelers, like Taylor, who had written the account that now lay in Wyalusing. But whether any of the few accounts written by such travelers had been true was very much a question. Cornwall wrinkled his brow at the thought. There was nothing, he realized, that would argue the Taylor account as any more factual than the rest of them. The man had not actually visited the Old Ones but had only heard of them; and he need not have even traveled to the Wasteland to have heard of them. The ancient fist ax, carried by Gib, was better evidence that they existed than had been Taylor's words. It was strange, he reminded himself, that the bishop had instantly recognized the ax as belonging to the Old Ones. He realized that he should have talked further with the bishop about the matter, but there had been little time and much else to talk about.

It was a matchless autumn day. They had made a late start and the sun already had climbed far into the sky. There were no clouds and the weather was rather warm and as they climbed the hill, the panorama of the river valley spread out below them like a canvas painted by a man mad with the sense of color.

"There is something up there on the ridge," said Mary. "Something watching us."

He raised his head, scanning the horizon.

"I don't see a thing," he said.

"I saw it only for a moment," she said. "Maybe not really seeing it. Maybe just the movement of it. That might have been all. Not really seeing anything, but seeing it move."

"We'll be watched," said Sniveley, who along with Oliver had forced their horse toward the head of the column. "We can count on that. There'll never be a moment we'll be out of their sight. They'll know everything we do."

"They?" asked Cornwall.

Sniveley shrugged. "How is one to know? There are so many different kinds of us. Goblins, gnomes, banshees. Maybe even brownies and fairies, for respectable as such folk may be considered by you humans, they still are a part of all this. And other things as well. Many other things, far less respectable and well intentioned."

"We'll give them no offense," said Cornwall. "We'll not lift a hand against them."

"Be that as it may," said Sniveley, "we are still intruders."

"Even you?" asked Mary.

"Even we," said Sniveley. "Even Oliver and I. We are outlanders, too. Traitors, perhaps deserters. For we or our forefathers deserted the homeland and went to live in the Borderland with their enemies."

"We shall see," said Cornwall.

The horses plodded up the path and finally reached the ridge. Before them spread, not a plateau, as might have been suspected, but a succession of other ridges, each one higher as they spread out horizonward, like regularly spaced and frozen waves.

The path angled down a barren slope covered with browning grass. At the lower edge of the slope, a dense forest covered the span that lay between the hills. There was not a living thing in sight, not even birds. An eerie feeling of loneliness closed in about them, and yet in all that loneliness Cornwall had an uncomfortable feeling between his shoulder blades.

Moving slowly, as if unwilling to go farther, the horse went down the trail, which twisted to one side to bypass a giant white oak tree that stood alone in the sweep of grass. It was a tall, yet squatty tree, with a huge bole and widely spreading branches, the first of which thrust out from the trunk not more than twelve feet above the ground.

Cornwall saw that something apparently had been driven deeply into the hard wood of the trunk. He reined in his horse and stared at it. About two feet of it extended out beyond the wood. It was a couple of inches in diameter, an ivory white and twisted.

Behind him Sniveley involuntarily sucked in his breath.

"What is it?" Mary asked.

"The horn of a unicorn," said Sniveley. "There are not many of the creatures left, and I have never heard of one that left his horn impaled in a tree."

"It is a sign," Oliver said solemnly.

Cornwall nudged his horse closer and reached down to grasp the horn. He pulled and it did not budge. He pulled again and he might as well have tried to pull a branch from the tree.

"We'll have to chop it out," he said.

"Let me try," said Mary.

She reached down and grasped the horn. It came free with a single tug. It measured three feet or so in length, tapering down to a needle point. It was undamaged and unbroken.

They all gazed at it in awe.

"I never saw a thing like this before," said Mary. "Old tales, of course, told in the Borderland, but. . ." "It is an excellent omen," said Sniveley. "It is a good beginning."

18

They camped just before dark in a glade at the head of one of the ravines that ran between the hills. A spring gushed out from the hillside, giving rise to a tiny stream that went gurgling down its bed. Gib chopped firewood from a down pine that lay above the campsite. The day had remained a perfect one and in the west a lemon sky, painted by the setting sun, slowly turned to green. There was grass for the horses, and they were sheltered from the wind by a dense forest growth that closed in on the glade from every side.

Hal said, "They're all around us. We're knee-deep in them. They are out there watching."

"How can you tell?" asked Mar}'.

"I can tell," said Hal. "Coon can tell. See him over there, huddled by the fire. He doesn't seem to be listening, but he is. Quiet as they may be, he still can hear them. Smell them, likely, too."

"We pay no attention to them," Sniveley said. "We act as if they aren't there. We must get used to it; we can't get our wind up. This is the way that it will be. They'll dog our footsteps every minute, watching, always watching. There's nothing to be afraid of yet. There are nothing but the little ones out there now—the elves, the trolls, the brownies. Nothing dangerous. Nothing really mean. Nothing really big."

Cornwall raked coals out of the fire, pushed them together, set a skillet of combread dough on them. "And what happens," he asked, "when something really mean and big shows up?"

Sniveley shrugged. He squatted across the coals from Cornwall. "I don't know," he said. "We play it by ear—what is it you say, by hunch? It's all that we can do. We have a few things going for us. The unicorn horn, for one. That's powerful medicine. The story of it will spread. In another day or two, all the Wasteland will know about the horn. And there's the magic sword you wear."

Tin glad you brought that up," said Cornwall. "I had meant to ask you. I've been wondering why you gave it to Gib. Surely, he told you for whom it was intended. You made a slip there, Master Gnome. You should have checked my credentials. If you had, you would have known that, search the world over, you could have found no swordsman more inept than I. I wore a sword, of course, but, then, a lot of men wear swords. Mine was an old blade and dull, a family heirloom, not too valuable, even in a sentimental sense. From one year's end to another, I never drew it forth."

"Yet," said Sniveley, grinning, "I am told you acquitted yourself quite nobly in the stable affair."

Cornwall snorted in disgust. "I fell against the hind end of a horse and the horse promptly kicked me in the gut, and that was the end of it for me. Gib, with his trusty ax, and Hal, with his bow, were the heroes of that fight."

"Still, I am told that you killed your man."

"An accident, I can assure you, no more than an accident. The stupid lout ran on the blade."

"Well," said Sniveley, "I don't suppose it matters too much how it came about. The point is that you managed it."

"Clumsily," said Cornwall, "and with no glory in it."

"It sometimes seems to me," said Sniveley, "that much of the glory attributed to great deeds may derive overmuch from hindsight. A simple job of butchery in aftertimes somehow becomes translated into a chivalrous encounter."

Coon came around the fire, reared up, and put his forefeet on Cornwall's knee. He pointed his nose at the skillet of cornbread and his whiskers twitched.

"In just a little while," Cornwall told him. "It'll take a little longer. I promise there'll be a piece for you."

"I often wonder," Sniveley said, "how much he understands. An intelligent animal. Hal talks to him all the time. Claims he answers back."

"I would have no doubt he does," said Cornwall.

"There is a strong bond between the two of them," said Sniveley. "As if they might be brothers. Coon was chased by dogs one night. He was scarcely more than a pup. Hal rescued him and took him home. They've been together ever since. Now, with the size of him and the smartness of him, no dog in its right mind would want to tangle with him."

Mary said, "The dogs must know him well. Hal says there is a moonshiner out hunting coons almost every night, come fall. The dogs never follow on Coon's track. Even when he's out, the dogs don't bother him. In the excitement of the hunt, they may come upon his track and trail him for a time, but then they break it off."

"Oh, the dogs are smart enough," said Hal. "The only thing that's smarter is Old Coon himself."

Gib said, "They're still out there. You can see one every now and then, moving in the dark."

"They've been with us," said Sniveley, "from the moment that we crossed the river. We didn't see them, of course, but they were there and watching."

Something plucked at Mary's sleeve, and when she turned her head, she saw the little creature with a face that seemed wrinkled up with worry.

"Here is one of them right now," she said. "Come out into the open. Don't make any sudden moves or you will scare him off."

The little creature said, "I am Bromeley, the troll. Don't you remember me?"

"I'm not sure I do," she said, then hesitated. "Are you one of them I used to play with?"

"You were a little girl," said Bromeley. "No bigger than any one of us. There was me and the brownie, Fiddlefingers, and at times a stray fairy or an elf that happened to come by. You never thought that we were different. You were not big enough to know. We made mud pies down by the creek, and while neither myself nor Fiddlefingers regarded mud-pie making as a worthwhile enterprise, we humored you. If you wanted to make mud pies, we went and made them with you."

"I remember now," said Mary. "You lived underneath a bridge, and I always thought that under a bridge was the strangest place to live."

"You should know by now," said Bromeley, with a touch of haughtiness, "that all proper trolls must reside beneath a bridge. There is no other place that is acceptable."

"Yes, of course," said Mary, "I know about troll bridges."

"We used to go and pester the ogre," Bromeley said. "We'd toss pebbles and clods and pieces of wood and other things down into his den, and then we'd run as fast as we could manage so he wouldn't catch us. Thinking of it since, I doubt very much the ogre knew about our misbehavior. We were timid characters prone to be scared of shadows. Nothing like the fairies, though. The fairies were really scaredy-cats."

Cornwall started to speak, but Mary shook her head at him. "What are all the other folk doing, watching us?" she asked. "Why don't they come out? We could build up the fire and all of us sit around it talking. We could even dance. There might be something we could eat. We could cook up more cornbread. Enough for all of us."

"They won't come," said Bromeley. "Not even for cornbread. They were against my coming. They even tried to stop me. But I had to come. I remembered you from very long ago. You've been in the Borderland?"

"I was taken there," said Mary.

"I came and hunted for you and I didn't understand. I couldn't understand why you would want to leave. Except for the mud pies, which were boring and terribly messy work, we had good times together."

"Where is Fiddlefingers now?"

"I do not know," said the troll. "He dropped out of sight. Brownies are wanderers. They are always on the move. We trolls stay in one place. We find a bridge we like and settle down and live there all our-"

Suddenly there was a piping, although later, when they thought of it, they realized it had not come so suddenly as it seemed. It had been there for some time while the troll had talked with Mary, but little more than an insect noise, as if some cricket in the grass or underbrush had been doing some quiet chirping. But now the piping welled up into a quavery warbling, then swelled into a wailing that throbbed and beat upon the air, not stopping after a moment, but going on and on, a wild and terrible music, part lament, part war cry, part gibbering of a madman.

Mary, startled, came to her feet, and so did Cornwall, his quick movement upsetting the skillet of cornbread. The horses, lunging at their picket ropes, neighed in terror. Sniveley was trying to scream, but with a voice that was no more than a squeak. "The Dark Piper," he squeaked and kept on saying it over and over again. "The Dark Piper, the Dark Piper, the Dark Piper. . ."

Something round and sodden came rolling down the steep incline that sloped above the camp. It rolled and bounced, and its bouncing made hollow thumps when it struck the ground. It rolled to the edge of the campfire and stopped and lay there, leering back at them with a mouth that was twisted to a leer. It was a severed human head.

19

On the afternoon of the next day they found the place the severed head had come from. The head itself lay buried, with scant ceremony and a hastily muttered prayer, at the foot of a great granite boulder at the first night's camp, with a crude cross thrust into the ground to mark its resting place.

Oliver protested the erecting of the cross. "They are leaving us alone," he said. "Why wave an insult at them? Your silly two sticks crossed are anathema to them."

But Cornwall stood firm. "A cross is not an insult," he said. "And how about this business of heaving human heads at us? That's not leaving us alone. This head belonged to a human and presumably a Christian. We owe the owner of the head at least a prayer and cross, and we'll give him both."

"You think," Gib asked, "it could be one of Beckett's men?"

"It could be," Cornwall said. "Since the inn, we've had no word of Beckett. We don't know if he's crossed the border yet, but if there were a human here, it could be one of Beckett's men. He lagged behind the line of march or went wandering and fell afoul of someone who has no love of humans."

"You oversimplify," said Sniveley. "There is no one in the Wasteland who has any love of humans."

"Except for the thrown head," said Cornwall, "they've made no move against us."

"Give them time," said Sniveley.

"You must consider, too," said Oliver, "that you're the only human here. They may have no great regard for any of us, but you . . ."

"There is Mary," said Hal.

"Mary, sure, but as a child she lived here, and on top of that there is the matter of that horn some addlepated unicorn left sticking in a tree."

"We do not come as an invading army," said Gib. "We are a simple band of innocents—pilgrims, if you will. There is no reason for them to have any fear of us."

"It is not fear with which we are here concerned," said Sniveley. "Rather, it is hate. A hatred that runs through untold centuries, a hatred deeply rooted."

Cornwall got little sleep. Each time that he dropped off he was assailed by a recurring dream that never quite got finished, in which he saw once again the head, or rather a distortion of the head, a weird caricature of the head, twisted out of all reality, but with a screaming horror of its own. Starting up in his blanket, he'd awake in a sweat of fright. Then, when he had fought down the fear and settled back, he'd recall the head once more, not the dream-distortion of it, but as he remembered it, lying by the fire, so close to the fire that little jumping sparks flying from the burning wood set the hair and beard ablaze, and the hair would fry and sizzle, shriveling up, leaving little blobs of expanded, burned material at the end of every strand. The eyes were open and staring, and they had the look of marbles rather than of eyes. The mouth and face were twisted as if someone had taken the head in two strong and hairy hands and bent it to one side. The bared teeth gleamed in the campfire light, and a drool of spittle had run out of one corner of the twisted mouth and lay dried and flaking in the beard.

Finally, toward morning, he fell into a sleep so exhausted that even the dream of the head could not return to taunt him. Breakfast was ready when Oliver finally woke him. He ate, trying very hard, but not succeeding too well, to keep from looking at the cross that stood, canted at an angle, at the foot of the boulder. There was little talk by anyone, and they saddled hurriedly and moved off.

The path they had been following remained a path; it never broadened out to become a road. The terrain grew rougher and wilder, a somehow haunted landscape, deep defiles and gorges, down which the trail wound to reach narrow, rock-rimmed valleys, with the path then climbing tortuously through heavy pines and towering cliffs to reach a hilltop, then plunging down into another gorge. In these places one held his peace, scarcely daring to speak above a whisper, not knowing whether it was the sound of his own voice that he feared or the making of any kind of sound that might alert a lurking something to his presence. There were no habitations, no clearings, no sign that anyone, at any time, had ever lived within these fastnesses.

By common, unspoken consent, they did not halt for a noonday meal.

It was shortly after noon that Hal forced his horse past the others on the trail to come up with Cornwall, who was riding in the lead.

"Look up there," said Hal, pointing upward toward the narrow strip of sky that showed between the massive trees that crowded close on either side.

Cornwall looked. "I don't see anything. A speck or two is all. Birds flying."

"I've been watching them," said Hal. "They've kept coming in. There have been a lot of them. Buzzards. Something's dead."

"A cow, perhaps."

"There aren't any cows. There are no farms."

"A deer, then. A moose, perhaps."

"More than one deer," said Hal. "More than a single moose. That many buzzards, there is a lot of death."

Cornwall reined up. "What are you getting at?" he asked.

"The head," said Hal. "It had to come from somewhere. The path goes down into another gorge. A perfect ambush. Trapped in there, no one would get out."

"But we are fairly sure Beckett didn't come this way," said Cornwall. "He didn't cross at the tower. We've seen no sign. No hoof-prints. No old campfires. If there had been an ambush . . ."

"I don't know about all that," said Hal. "But I do know about buzzards, and there are too many of them."

Oliver and Sniveley came up behind Hal. "What is going on?" asked Oliver. "Is there something wrong?"

"Buzzards," said Hal.

"I don't see any buzzards."

"The specks up in the sky."

"Never mind," said Cornwall. "They are there, all right. There is something dead. Sniveley, I want to talk with you. Last night, just before someone tossed the head, there was all this piping . . ."

"The Dark Piper," said Sniveley. "I told you who it was."

"I remember now. You told me. But there was so much else happening. Who is the Dark Piper?"

"No one knows," said Sniveley, shivering just a little. "No one has ever seen him. Heard him, is all. Not too often. Sometimes not for many years. He's the harbinger of ill omen. He plays only when there are dark happenings. . . ."

"Cut out the riddles. What kind of dark happenings?"

"The head was a dark happening," said Hal.

"Not the head," protested Sniveley. "Something worse than that."

"Dark happenings to whom?" asked Cornwall.

"I do not know," said Sniveley. "No one ever knows."

"There was something about the piping," said Oliver, "that sounded familiar to me. I thought it at the time, but I couldn't put a finger on it. It was so terrifying that I suppose I was scared out of my wits. But riding along today, I did remember. Just a part of it. A phrase or two of it. It's part of an ancient song. I found the music of it in an ancient scroll at Wyalusing. There was that phrase or two. Passed down, the scroll said, from at least a hundred centuries ago. Perhaps the oldest song on Earth. I don't know how the man who wrote that ancient scroll could know. . ."

Cornwall grunted and urged his horse ahead. Hal fell in behind him. The trail dipped abruptly down, seeming to sink into the very earth, with great walls of jagged rocks rearing up on either side. Little streams of moisture ran down the face of the rocks, where scraggly ferns and mosses clung with precarious rootholds. Out of the rocky crevasses sprang sprawling cedar trees that seemed to have lost their balance and were about to fall at any moment. Cut off from the sun, the gorge grew increasingly darker as they descended it.

A gust of wind came puffing up between the rocky walls, powered by some atmospheric vagary, and with it came a stench, not an overpowering stench, but a whiff of stench, sweet, greenish and sickening —a smell, a presence that settled in the throat and would not go away, that rankled at the guts and turned one slightly sick.

"I was right," said Hal. "There is death down there."

Ahead of them loomed a sharp turn and as they came around it, the gorge came to an end and out in front of them was a rocky amphitheater, a circle closed in by towering cliffs. Ahead of them was the frightening whir of laboring wings as a flock of great black birds launched themselves off the things on which they had been feeding. A few of the ugly birds, too sluggish with their feasting to take off, hopped angrily about in an awkward fashion.

The stench rose up and struck them like a blow across the face.

"Good God!" said Cornwall, gagging at the sight of what lay on the pebbled shore of the little stream that wandered down across the amphitheater.

Out beyond the sodden mass of ragged flesh and protruding bone that bore slight resemblance to a man lay other shapeless lumps-some of them horses, bloated, with their legs extending stiffly; others of the lumps were human or had once been human. There were skulls grinning in the grass; rib cages starkly revealed, with the soft belly ripped away for easy eating; grotesque buttocks thrusting up. Scraps of clothing blew about, fluttering where they had been caught in the thorny branches of low-growing shrubs. A spear, its point buried in the ground, stood stark, a drunken exclamation point. Weak sunlight glittered on fallen shields and swords.

In among the scattered human dead and the bloated horses, other dead things lay—black-furred, grinning with great fangs frozen forever in the grin, short bushy tails, great, heavy shoulders, slender waists, huge hands (hands, not paws) armed with curving claws.

"Over there," said Gib. "There is the way that Beckett came."

At the far end of the amphitheater, a road (not a path such as they had been following, but a rutted road) came snaking out of the wall of rock surrounding the cuplike bowl in which they found themselves. The road continued across the far end of the bowl to plunge into another gorge that rose into the hills.

Cornwall rose in his stirrups and looked back. The others in the band set their horses stiffly, their faces blank with horror.

"There's nothing we can do," said Gib. "We had better ride on through."

"A Christian word," said Cornwall. "Something to speed them on their way, to give them peace and . . ."

"There are no words," Gib said, harshly, "that can do that for them now. There is no peace. Not here, there isn't any peace."

Cornwall nodded, kicked his horse into a trot, heading for the road, with the others following. On every side, wings beat as the carrion birds, interrupted at their meat, fought to become airborne. A fox ran frantically across the trail, its tail dragging. Little animals went darting.

When they pulled up on the road, they had left the carnage behind them. There were no bodies by the road. A flock of small gray birds hopped from branch to branch in a tiny thicket, chirping as they hopped. Out on the battlefield the larger, blacker birds were settling down again.

20

The man was waiting for them when they reached the top of the ridge that rose above the cuplike amphitheater, where they had found the aftermath of battle. It was quite apparent that he had been waiting for them. He was sitting comfortably at the foot of a great oak tree, leaning back against the trunk, and watching them with interest as they came clopping up the wagon road. Just beyond the tree stood a curious contraption. It was colored red and white, and it stood on two wheels, as if balancing itself without any particular difficulty. The wheels were very strange, for the rims of them were made of neither wood nor iron, but of some black substance, and they were not flat, as any proper rim should be, but somehow rounded. There were far too many spokes in the wheels and the spokes were not made of wood, but of many rounded, tiny strips of what seemed to be gleaming metal, and anyone in his right mind would have known that spokes so slender and so fragile would have no strength at all.

As they neared him, the man stood up and dusted off his seat, brushing away the leaves and dirt his breeches had picked up from sitting on the ground. The breeches were white and tight-fitting, and he wore a shirt of some red material and over that a vest that was also white. His boots were neatly made.

"So you made it," he said. "I wasn't sure you would."

Cornwall made a motion backward with his head. "You mean down there?"

"Exactly," said the man. "The country's all stirred up. It was just two days ago. You must enjoy running your head into a noose."

"We knew nothing of it," said Cornwall. "We came up from the tower. The men down there took a different route."

"Well," said the man, "you got through safely, and this is the thing that counts. I had been pulling for you."

"You knew that we were coming?"

"I had word of you yesterday. A motley band they told me. And I see that they were right."

"They?"

"Oh, assorted little friends I have. Skippers-through-the-thickets. Runners-in-the-grass. All eyes and ears. There is not much they miss. I know about the horn and about the head that came rolling to the campfire, and I have been waiting most impatiently to greet you."

"You know, then, who we are?"

"Only your names. And I beg your pardon. I am Alexander Jones. I have a place prepared for you."

Mary said, "Master Jones, I do not like the sound of that. We are entirely capable—"

"I am sorry, Mistress Mary, if I have offended you. All I meant to offer was hospitality. Shelter from the coming night, a good fire, hot food, a place to sleep."

"All of which," said Oliver, "so far as I am concerned, would be most welcome. Perhaps a measure of wine or a mug of beer as well. The stench back there is still clogging up my throat. Something is needed to wash it all away."

"Beer, or course," said Jones. "A full barrel of it is laid in against your coming. Do you agree, Sir Mark?"

"Yes," said Cornwall, "I do agree. I see no harm in it and perhaps some good. But do not call me sir; I am no more than a scholar."

"Then," said Jones, "pray, hold your horses well. For this mount of mine is a noisy beast."

He strode toward the contraption standing on two wheels. He threw one leg over it and settled on what became apparent was the contraption's seat. He reached out and grasped the two handlelike projections extending above and backward of the forward wheel.

"Hold a moment, there," said Gib. "There is one thing you have not told us. With all the dead men lying down there, how come you are still alive? You are human, are you not?"

"I like to think I am," said Jones, "and the answer to your question is an extremely simple one. Folk hereabouts believe I am a wizard, which, of course, I'm not."

He balanced on one foot and kicked with the other. The two-wheeled contraption came alive with an angry roar, breathing out a cloud of smoke. The horses reared in fright. Oliver, who was riding behind Sniveley, fell off and scrambled rapidly on all fours to get out of the way of the lashing hooves.

The two-wheeled monster quit its roaring, settled into a rumbling, throaty purr.

"I am sorry," Jones shouted to Oliver. "I warned you to watch yourselves."

"It's a dragon," said Sniveley. "A two-wheeled dragon, although I did not know that dragons came with wheels. What else but a dragon would make that sort of roar and breathe out fire and brimstone?" He reached down a hand to Oliver and helped him scramble up.

Jones urged the dragon into motion, heading down the road.

"I guess," said Hal, "all we can do is follow him. Hot food, he said. I could do with some."

"I do not like it," Sniveley complained. "I like it not one bit. I am not one to mess around with dragons, even if they be domesticated ones, broken to the saddle."

The dragon speeded up, and they had to force their horses into a rapid trot to keep up with it. The road was not as deeply rutted as it had been coming up the gorge. Now it followed a plateau, running straight between stands of pine and birch, with only an occasional oak tree rearing up above the lesser forest. Then the road dipped down, not sharply, but rather gradually, into a pleasant valley, and there on the valley floor they saw the collection of three tents, all of them gaily striped and with pennons flying from their tops.

The dragon pulled up before the largest tent, and Jones dismounted. To one side was a table made of rough boards and beyond it cooking fires, with spits set above the fires and a huge beer barrel mounted on a pair of sawhorses, with a spigot already driven in the bung. Tending the fires and spits was a ragamuffin crew of brownies, trolls, and goblins, who were going about their work with a tremendous clanging of pans. Some of them dropped their work and ran to take charge of the horses.

"Come," said Jones, "let us sit and talk. I know there must be a deal to talk about."

A half-dozen of the trolls were busy at the beer barrel, filling great mugs from the spigot and bearing them to the table.

"Now, this is fine," said Jones. "We can have a drink or two before the food is ready. For, of course, it is never ready when it is supposed to be. These little friends of mine are willing workers, but most disorganized. Take whatever seat you wish and let's begin our talk."

Oliver scurried to the table and grabbed a mug of beer, dipping his muzzle into it and drinking heartily. Desisting, he wiped the foam from his whiskers. "This is proper brew," he said. "Not like the swill they serve in Wyalusing inns."

"Sniveley calls your mount a dragon," Hal said to Jones, "and while it breathes fire and smoke and bellows most convincingly, I know it is no dragon. I have never seen a dragon, but I've heard stories of them, and the descriptions in the stories are nothing like this creature that you ride. It has no head or wings and a dragon has both head and wings and, I believe, a tail as well."

"You are quite right," said Jones, delighted. "It is not a dragon, although many others than Sniveley have guessed it to be one. It is not a creature at all, but a machine, and it is called a trail bike."

"A trail bike," said Gib. "I've never heard of one."

"Of course you've not heard of one," said Jones. "This is the only one in this entire world."

"You say it is a machine," said Cornwall, "and we have machines, of course, but nothing like this. There are machines of war, the siege machines that are used to hurl great stones or flights of arrows or flaming material against a beleaguered city."

"Or a mill wheel," said Gib. "A mill wheel would be a machine."

"I suppose it is," said Hal.

"But a mill wheel runs by the force of flowing water," Mary said, "and the engines of war by the winding up of ropes. Can you tell us how this machine of yours runs?"

"Not too well," said Jones. "I could not explain it all to you. I could tell you some things, but they would make no sense."

"You don't know, then, how it runs," said Cornwall.

"No, I really don't."

"It must be magic, then."

"I can assure you that it is not magic. There is no magic in my world. You have to come to this world to find magic."

"But that is ridiculous," said Mary. "There has to be magic. Magic is a part of life."

"In my world," said Jones, "magic has been swept away. Men talk of magic, certainly, but they talk of something that is gone. At one time there may have been magic, but it has disappeared."

"And you have to come to this world to find the magic you have lost?"

"That is exactly it," said Jones. "I've come to study it."

"It is strange," said Cornwall. "It is passing strange, all these things you say. You must have some magic in you, even if you do deny it. For here you have all these little people working willingly for you, or at least they appear to be quite willing. Tending the fires and food, carrying the beer, taking care of the horses. They have been following us, but they have not come out to help us. They only hide and watch."

"Give them time," said Jones. "That was the way it was with me when I first arrived. They simply hid and watched, and I went about my business, paying no attention to them. After a time they began coming out to sit and talk with me. From certain things I did and certain things I had, they thought I was a wizard and, therefore, someone who was worthy of them."

"You have advantage of us there," said Cornwall. "There is no wizardry about us."

"I hear otherwise," said Jones. "These little ones of mine tell me otherwise. They heard it from your little ones and came scampering to tell me all about it. There is one of you who can pull the horn of a unicorn from the oak, and there is another who carries a very magic sword, and still another who carries a very special kind of stone."

"How did they know about the stone?" demanded Gib. "The stone is securely wrapped and carried secretly. We've not even talked about it."

"Oh, they know, all right," said Jones. "Don't ask me how they know, but it seems they do. Check me if I'm wrong—the stone is one made by the Old Ones very long ago and now will be returned to them."

Cornwall leaned forward eagerly. "What do you know about the Old Ones? Can you tell me where they might be found?"

"Only what I have been told. You go to the Witch House and then across the Blasted Plain. You skirt the castle of the Chaos Beast and then you come to the Misty Mountains and there, if you are lucky, you may find the Old Ones. I'm told there are not many of them left, for they are a dying people, and they hide most fearfully, although if you come upon them suddenly, you well may be hard put to defend yourself."

"The Witch House," said Mary anxiously. "You speak about the Witch House. Is it an old, old house? One that appears as if it may be falling down upon itself? Standing on a little knoll above a stream, with an old stone bridge across the stream? An old two-story house, with many, many chimneys and a gallery running all the way across the front?"

"You describe it exactly. Almost as if you might have seen it."

"I have," said Mary. "It is the house where I lived when I was a little girl. There was a troll named Bromeley who lived underneath the bridge. And there was a brownie, Fiddlefingers . . ."

"Bromeley was the one who popped out to see you last night," said Hal.

"Yes, he came to see me. While the others all stayed safely hidden, he came out to greet me. He remembered. If it hadn't been for someone throwing in that horrid head . . ."

"I worried what might have happened," said Jones, "when you reached the battlefield. I was a coward and waited. I should have come out to meet you, but I was afraid that my coming might trigger some reaction, that I might do something that I shouldn't. I started to come down to meet you, then I came back. . . ."

"But there was nothing to harm us," Cornwall said. "It was horrible, of course, but there was no danger. The only ones nearby was this gang of trolls and goblins and other little people. . . ."

"My friend," said Jones, "I am glad you thought so. The belief there were only trolls and goblins may have helped you through it. With no wish to frighten you, I must tell you there were others there."

"What others?" asked Sniveley sharply.

"Hellhounds," said Jones. "A slavering pack of Hellhounds. As well as the little people, they've been with you ever since you crossed the ford."

"Hellhounds?" asked Cornwall. "There were other than human bodies on the battlefield. The ones with tails and fangs."

"You are right," said Jones.

"I knew of them," said Sniveley quietly. "They are a part of our tradition. But I have never seen one, never knew anyone who had." He explained to Cornwall. "They are the enforcers. The executioners. The professional killers."

"But so far," said Cornwall, "they have let us pass."

"They will let you pass," said Jones, "if you continue as you have. They've not made up their minds about you. Make one wrong move and they'll be down on you."

"And what about yourself?" asked Cornwall. "Are they watching you as well?"

"Perhaps," said Jones. "They did at first, of course, and they may still be watching. But, you see, I've built up a marginal reputation as a wizard and, aside from that, they may consider me insane."

"And that would be protection?"

"I have some hope it might be. I've done nothing to disabuse the thought, if indeed they have it."

"There's someone coming up the road," said Sniveley.

They all turned to look.

"It's the Gossiper," said Jones. "He's a goddamn pest. He can scent food from seven miles away and a drink of beer from twice that distance."

The Gossiper came stumping up the road. He was a tall, lean figure, wearing a dirty robe that trailed in the dust behind him. On his shoulder perched a raven, and from a strap slung across one shoulder dangled an oblong package that was encased in sheepskin. He carried a long staff in his left hand and thumped it energetically on the road with every step he took. He was followed by a little white dog with a limp. The dog was all white except for black spots encircling each eye, which made it appear he was wearing spectacles.

The Gossiper came up close beside the table and stopped in front of Cornwall, who swung around to face him. Now that the man was close enough, it could be seen that his robe was very worn and ragged, with gaping rents, through which one could see his hide. Some of the more pronounced rents had been patched, somewhat inexpertly, with cloth of many different colors, but sun and dirt had so reduced the colors that they blended in with the mud color of the robe. The raven was molting, and a couple of loosened feathers hung ragged from its tail; overall the bird looked moth-eaten. The little dog sat down and, with his good hindleg, fell to scratching fleas.

If the Gossiper was human, he was barely human. His ears rose to a point, and his eyes were strangely slanted. His nose was squashed across his face, and his teeth had the look of fangs. His grizzled hair, uncombed, was a writhing rat's nest. The hand that grasped the staff had long, uneven, dirty fingernails.

He said to Cornwall, "You be the scholar, Mark Cornwall? Lately of Wyalusing?"

"That is who I am," said Cornwall.

"You are the leader of this band of pilgrims?"

"Not the leader. We are all together."

"However that may be," said the Gossiper, "I have words of wisdom for you. Perhaps a friendly warning. Go no farther than the Witch House. That is as far as pilgrims are allowed to go."

"Beckett wasn't allowed to go even that far."

"Beckett was no pilgrim."

"And you are sure we are?"

"It's not what I think, Sir Scholar. It is what they think. I only speak their words."

"And who the hell are they?"

"Why, fair sir, must you pretend to so much innocence? If you do not know, there are others of your party who are not so ignorant?"

"You are thinking about Oliver and me," said Sniveley. "I would advise you to be careful of your words. I, as a gnome, and Oliver, as a goblin, here stand on home ground. We can go anywhere we please."

"I am not so sure," said the Gossiper, "you can claim that right. You forsook the Brotherhood."

"You still have not answered me," said Cornwall. "Tell me of the 'they' you talk about."

"You have heard of the Hellhounds?"

"I know of them," said Cornwall.

"The Chaos Beast, perhaps. And He Who Broods Upon the Mountain."

"I have heard of them. In old travelers' tales. No more than bare mention of them."

"Then you should pray," said the Gossiper, "that your acquaintanceship becomes no closer."

Cornwall swiveled around to look at Jones. Jones nodded tightly. "He told me the same thing. But, as you know, I am a coward. I did not go beyond the Witch House."

He said to the Gossiper, "How about a beer?"

"I do believe I will," said the Gossiper. "And a slice of meat when it should be done. I have traveled far, and I hunger and I thirst most excessively."