Enchanted Pilgrimage (18 page)

“And you liked them,” Mary said.

“Indeed, I did. I liked them very much. It was a sad day for me when they went into the west, headed for the Blasted Plain. They had intended to take you, my dear, but I talked them out of it. I knew there was no point in trying to persuade them not to go themselves, for they were set on it. As I say, they had no fear in them. They believed that if they went in peace, they'd be allowed to go in peace. They had an almost childish faith in goodness. I think the only reason they left you behind was that never for a moment did they think they would not be coming back. They consoled themselves in leaving you behind in thinking they'd spare you the rigors of the trip. Not the dangers of it, for they never once admitted there would be dangers.”

“They went west, then,” said Cornwall. “What did they seek there?”

“I'm not sure I ever knew,” the ogre said. “Certainly they never told me. There was a time when I thought I knew, but now I'm not so sure. There was something they were looking for. I got the impression they had a good idea where it was.”

“And you think they now are dead,” said Mary.

“No, actually I don't. I've sat here at the burrow's mouth year after year and stared out across the land. There's never been a time, to say it honestly, when I expected to see them coming back. But if I had ever seen them, I would not have been surprised. There was a sense of the indestructible about them, despite all their gentleness, as if they were unkillable, as if death were not for them. I know this may sound strange, and undoubtedly I'm wrong, but there are times you have a feeling that is beyond all logic. I saw them leave. I watched them until they were out of sight. And now I suppose I'll see you going, too, for I understand that you are about to follow in their path; she is going with you, and I suppose there is no stopping her.”

“I wish there were a way to stop her,” Cornwall said.

“But there's not,” said Mary. “So long as there's a chance of finding them.”

“And what can I say to that?” asked Cornwall.

“There is nothing you can say,” the ogre told him. “I hope you are more proficient with that sword than I take it you are. You have no look of fighting man to me. You smell of books and inkpot.”

“You are right,” said Cornwall, “but I go in goodly company. I have stout companions, and the sword I wear is made of magic metal. I only wish I had more training in the handling of it.”

“I could suggest,” the ogre said, “one other you might add who would make your company the stronger.”

“You mean Jones,” said Cornwall.

The ogre nodded. “He proclaims himself a coward. But there is great virtue in a coward. Bravery is a disease, too often fatal. It's the kind of thing that gets you killed. Jones would take no chances; he would commit himself to no action unless he were fairly certain the advantage weighed favorably. I would suggest he might carry powerful weapons, although I would have no idea what kind of weapons they might be. He has magic, but a different kind of magic than we have—a more subtle and more brutal magic, and he would be a good man to have along.”

“I don't know,” said Cornwall, hesitantly. “There is something about the man that makes me uncomfortable.”

“The power of his magic,” said the ogre. “The power and scope of it. And its unfamiliarity.”

“Perhaps you're right. Although I think, uncomfortable or not, I'll make mention of it to him.”

“I think,” said Mary, “that he may be only waiting for you to do so. He wants to go deeper into the Wasteland and is afraid to go alone.”

“And how about you?” Cornwall asked the ogre. “Would you join forces with us?”

“No, I would not,” the ogre said. “I have long since done with foolishness. Come to think of it, I was never foolish. I have arrived at that time of life when sleeping in my burrow and sitting at its entrance to watch the world go by is all I need and want.”

“But you'll tell us what to expect.”

“Only hearsay,” said the ogre, “and you have enough of that. Anyone can give you that, and you are a fool if you pay attention to it.” He looked closely at Cornwall. “I think you are no fool,” he said.

24

Jones' camp seemed deserted. The three striped tents still stood, but there was no one to be seen, not even any of the little people. The crude table still stood, and scattered about it and the now dead fire hearths, on which the feast had been cooked, were gnawed bones and here and there a beer mug. Two beer barrels still lay on the wooden horses, where they had been placed for tapping. A vagrant wind came down between the trees and stirred a tiny puff of dust in the road that ran to the battlefield.

Mary shivered. “It's lonely,” she said. “After last night it is lonely. Where is everyone?”

The two horses they had ridden to the camp pawed listlessly at the ground, impatient to be back in the knee-deep pasture grass. They tossed their heads, jangling the bridle bits.

“Jones,” said Cornwall. He'd meant to make it a shout, but in the moment of shouting some sense of caution toned down his lung power, and it came out as a simple word, almost conversational.

“Let's have a look,” he said. He strode toward the larger tent, with Mary at his heels.

The tent was empty. The military cot still stood in its corner and the desk and chair. The corner opposite the desk was still hung with dark drapes, and beside it stood the large metallic cabinet. What Jones had called his cameras were gone. So was the box in which he had kept the little colored miniatures. So were all the other many mysterious objects that had been on the desk.

“He's gone,” said Cornwall. “He has left this world. He has gone back to his own.”

He sat down on the cot and clasped his hands. “There was so much he could have told us,” he said, half talking to himself. “The things he started to tell me last night before the Hellhounds came along.”

He glanced about the tent and for the first time felt the alien quality of it—the other-worldness of it—not so much the tent itself or the articles remaining in it, for they were, after all, not so greatly different—but some mysterious sense, some strangeness, a smell of different origins and of different time. And for the first time since he'd started on the journey he felt the prick of fear and an overwhelming loneliness.

He looked up at Mary, standing there beside him, and in a strangely magic moment her face was all the world—her face and eyes that looked back in his own.

“Mary,” he said, scarcely knowing that he said it, reaching up for her, and as he reached, she was in his arms. Her arms went around him hard, and he held her close against himself, feeling the soft, yielding contours of her body against the hardness of his own. There was comfort and exultation in the warmth of her, in the smell and shape of her.

She whispered in his ear, “Mark, Mark, Mark,” as if it were a prayer, as if it were a pledge.

Tightening his arms, he swung her to the cot and turned so that he was above her. She raised her head to kiss him and the kiss kept on and on. He slid a hand into her robe and felt the nakedness—the soft fullness of the breast, the taut smoothness of the belly, the tender lushness of the pubic hair.

The entire world hammered at him, trying to get in, but he was proof against it. He shut it out in a small tight world that contained only Mary and himself. There was no one else but the two of them. There was nothing mattered but the two of them.

The tent flap rustled and a tense voice called, “Mark, where are you?”

He surged up out of the private world of him and Mary and sat blinking at the figure that stood within the parted flap.

Hal said, “I'm sorry—terribly sorry to disturb you at your dalliance.”

Cornwall came swiftly to his feet. “Goddamn you to hell,” he yelled, “it was not dalliance.”

He took a swift step forward, but Mary, rising swiftly, caught him by the arm. “It's all right,” she said. “Mark, it is all right.”

“I do apologize,” said Hal, “to the both of you. It was most unseemly of me. But I had to warn you. Hellhounds are nosing close about.”

Gib popped through the flap. “What possessed you,” he asked in an angry tone of voice, “to go off by yourselves? Without the rest of us?”

“It was quiet,” said Cornwall. “There seemed to be no danger.”

“There is always danger. Until we leave these benighted lands, there always will be danger.”

“I wanted to find Jones. To ask him if he would join us. But he has left, it seems. It doesn't look as if he's coming back.”

“We need no Jones,” said Hal. “The four of us, with Oliver and Sniveley, will be quite enough. No two of us alone, perhaps, but all of us together.”

25

The little ones had deserted them. Now they traveled quite alone, the six of them together.

It was nearing evening, and the land had changed but little. Five miles from the knoll where the Witch House stood they had come upon the Blasted Plain. Lying to the far horizon, it was a place of desolation. Drifting sand dunes lay here and there, and in between the dunes the land was parched and empty. Dead grass, dried to the consistency of hay, could be found in the lower areas where water once had lain but now there was no water. Occasional dead trees lifted their bonelike skeletons above the land, clutching at the sky with twisted, broken fingers.

Three of the horses were loaded with water, with the members of the party taking turns at riding the other two. Early in the day, Mary had rebelled at an unspoken conspiracy that would have delegated one of the remaining mounts to her and had done her share of walking. Except in the sand dune areas the walking was not difficult, but it held down the miles they could have made if all had been mounted.

Hal and Cornwall now led the march. Hal squinted at the sun. “We should be stopping soon,” he said. “All of us are tired, and we want to be well settled in before darkness comes. How about that ridge over to the left? It's high ground, so we can keep a watch. There are dead trees for fire.”

“Our fire up there,” protested Cornwall, “could be spotted from a long way off.”

Hal shrugged. “We can't hide. You know that. Maybe there is no one watching now, but they knew we started out. They know where we can be found.”

“The Hellhounds, you think?”

“Who knows?” said Hal. “Maybe the Hellhounds. Maybe something else.”

“You don't sound worried.”

“Of course I'm worried. You'd be stupid not to be worried. Even not to be a bit afraid. The best advice we got back there was from the ogre. He said don't go. But we had to go. There was no point in coming that far if we weren't going on.”

“I quite agree with you,” said Cornwall.

“In any case,” said Hal, “you and Gib would have gone on alone. It would have ill behooved the rest of us to do any hanging back.”

“I saw no hanging back,” said Cornwall.

They trudged along in silence, sand and pebbles grating underneath their feet. They neared the ridge Hal had pointed out.

“Do you agree?” said Hal. “The ridge?”

Cornwall nodded. “You're the woodsman.”

“There are no woods here.”

“Nevertheless, the ridge,” said Cornwall. “You are the one to know. I still remain a city man and know little of these things.”

As they climbed the ridge, Hal pointed out a deep valley that gashed its side. “There is dry grass in there,” he said. “The horses can do some grazing before dark. Then we'll have to bring them up to the camp for night.”

Once they had gathered atop the ridge, Hal took charge. “Mark,” he said, “you water the horses. Half a bucket to each horse, no more. After that, take them down to grass. Have them back before dark, and keep a sharp lookout. Mary, you'll be on watch. Watch in all directions. Scream if you see anything at all. The rest of you gather wood from that clump of trees. We'll need a lot of it.”

When Cornwall got back to the ridgetop with the horses, the campfire was burning brightly, with a bed of coals raked over to one side, with Mary cooking over them. Sniveley and Oliver were on watch. Hal picketed the horses.

“You go over and have some food,” he said to Cornwall. “The rest of us have eaten.”

“Where is Gib?” asked Cornwall.

“He's out scouting around.”

The sun had gone down, but a faint light hung over the landscape, which had turned to purple. Gazing out over it, there was nothing to be seen. It was a land of shadows.

“The moon will be coming up in an hour or so,” said Hal.

At the fire Cornwall sat down on the ground.

“Hungry?” Mary asked.

“Starved,” he said. “And tired. How about you?”

“I'm all right,” she said. She filled a plate for him.

“Cornbread,” she said, “and some bacon, but a lot of gravy. Awfully greasy gravy, but maybe you won't mind. No fresh meat. There was nothing for Hal to shoot. Nothing but those jackrabbits, and with them he had no chance.”

She sat down beside him, moved over close against him, lifted her face to be kissed.

“I have to talk with you,” she said, “before the others come back. Oliver talked with me, and he was going to talk with you, but I told him no, let me talk with you. I told him it would be better.”

He asked, amused, “What did Oliver have to say to you?”

“You remember back at the tent?”

“I'll never forget it. And you? How about you, Mary?”

“I can't forget it, either. But it can't go on. Oliver says it can't. That's what he talked about.”

“What the hell has Oliver got to do with it—with you and me? That is, if you feel the same as I do.”

She grasped his arm, lay her head against it. “But I do. There were all those days you never even noticed me, and then suddenly you did. When you did, I could have cried. You are the first one—you must understand that—you are the first. I was a tavern wench, but never …”