Enchanted Pilgrimage (28 page)

There were more dots now, circling but dropping lower as they circled.

The walls of rock rose up from the gorge's narrow floor, shutting out the sun. Only at high noon would there be sunlight in this place. Here and there trees, mostly cedar and other small evergreens; sprouted from the rock faces of the wall, clinging stubbornly to little pockets of soil lodged in the unevenness of the rock. The wind moaned as it blew along the tortuous course the gorge pursued.

“I don't like this place,” said Sniveley. “It puts a chill into my bones.”

“And here I stand,” lamented Jones, “without a weapon to my hand other than this driftwood cudgel I managed to pick up. If I only had the rifle. If that stupid robot had not thrown away my rifle …”

The stupid robot stood unperturbed by what Jones had said—if, indeed, he had heard what had been said. All his tentacles were retracted except for the one on his chest, which lay arranged in a boxlike fashion.

The dots were dropping lower, and now it could be seen that they were enormous birds with a monstrous wingspread.

“If I only had my glasses, I could make out what they are,” said Jones. “But, no, of course, I haven't got my glasses. I persuaded myself that I had to travel light. It's a goddamn wonder I brought anything at all. The only two things I had that counted were the rifle and the bike, and now both of them are gone.”

“I can tell you what they are,” said Hal.

“You have sharp eyes, my friend.”

“He has forest eyes,” said Gib. “A hunter's eyes.”

Hal said, “They are harpies.”

“The meanest things in the Enchanted Land,” screeched Sniveley. “Meaner than the Hellhounds. And us out in the open.”

Steel rasped as Cornwall drew his blade. “You're getting good at that,” Hal said nonchalantly. “Almost smooth as silk. If you'd practice just a little.”

The harpies were plunging down in a deadly dive, their wings half-folded, their cruel, skull-like human faces equipped with deadly beaks thrust out as they dived.

Hal's bowstring twanged, and one of the harpies broke out of the dive and tumbled, turning end for end, its folded wings coming loose and spreading out limply in the air. The string twanged again, and a second one was tumbling.

The others waited for them and the Gossiper, backed against a rocky wall, held his staff at ready. The little lame dog crouched between his feet and the raven reared on his shoulder, squalling.

“Let me get just one good crack at them,” said the Gossiper, almost as if he were praying or, more likely, talking to himself. “I'll crack their stupid necks. I hate the filthy things. I need not be here, but I cannot go away right yet. I've greased my gut with this company, not once but twice, and my Fido and their Coon get along together.”

“Get down,” Cornwall told Mary. “Close against the ground. Stay right here beside me.”

Sniveley and Oliver had hastily gathered a small pile of rocks and now stood on either side of it, with rocks clutched in their hands.

The harpies were almost on top of them and now shifted the direction of their dive, pivoting in midair so that they presented their massively taloned feet rather than their beaked heads.

Cornwall swung his sword and the singing blade sliced off the feet of a plunging harpy. The heavy body, falling to the ground, bounced and rolled. The vicious beak of the wounded monster stabbed at Hal's leg as it rolled past, but missed the stroke.

Standing close to the Gossiper, Bucket was the center of a network of lashing tentacles, knocking the diving harpies off their mark, catching them and hurling them against the stony walls.

Jones, swinging his club with lusty will, knocked down two of the attackers. The third got through, fastening one claw on his arm, trying to reach his face with the other. The mighty wings beat heavily to lift him. Hal, hearing Jones' startled yell, swung about and sent an arrow into the body of the monster. Both the harpy and Jones fell heavily; Jones jerked free, and with his club beat in the harpy's skull. His left arm, streaming blood, hung limply.

The Gossiper beat off an attack with his staff, the raven screaming in triumph. Oliver and Sniveley sturdily kept on pegging rocks.

Gib cut down two of the attackers with his ax while Cornwall, swinging a deadly, gleaming blade, fought off harpy after harpy. A half a dozen wounded harpies hopped and fluttered about the rocky floor of the gorge. The air was filled with floating feathers.

One of the harpies, missing its plunge at Sniveley, perhaps diverted by the barrage of rocks that Oliver and Sniveley kept up, apparently quite by accident hooked one of its claws in Sniveley's belt and started to beat skyward. Sniveley squalled in terror, and Hal, seeing what had happened, winged an arrow that drove through the creature's neck. It fell heavily, dragging Sniveley with it.

The harpies drew off, laboring mightily to drive their massive bodies skyward.

Cornwall lowered his sword and looked about. Mary crouched at his feet. Sniveley, snarling oaths, was pulling himself free of the dead harpy's grasping talon. Hal lowered his bow and watched the retreating harpies.

“They'll be back,” he said, “taking only enough time to regroup. And I have but three arrows left. I could retrieve some from the bodies of the harpies, but that will take some time.”

Sniveley, still spitting fury, came limping up the gorge. He raged at Hal, “That arrow you loosed almost hit me. I could feel the wind of it going past my ear.”

“Would you rather I had let it haul you off?” asked Hal.

“You should be more careful,” Sniveley yelled.

Cornwall asked Jones, “How badly are you hurt?”

“My arm is deeply cut. It will stiffen, and I fear there will be infection.” He said to Hal, “I thank you for your shot.”

“We'll be hard pressed,” said Cornwall, “to fight them off next time. We were lucky this time. I think that our resistance considerably surprised them.”

Now heavy shadows lay within the gorge. The sun no longer lighted anything but a thin segment of the soaring walls of rock. Black pools of darkness lay here and there in the sharp angles of the floor.

“There is a way,” said the Gossiper, “by which we may be able to evoke some help. I am not too certain, but I think it might work.”

Bucket stood stolidly where he had been standing all the time, his tentacles now retracted except for the one, folded in its boxlike conformation, resting on his chest.

The Gossiper reached out his staff and touched the folded tentacle with the tip of it, holding out his other hand.

“Please,” he said. “Please give it to me. It may be the one thing that will save us.”

Bucket stirred, began deliberately to unwind the tentacle as they watched. Finally, they could see what he had been holding—the fist ax of the Old Ones.

“He cleaned the floor of the shelter of all the stones and clubs,” said Gib. “That was when he got it.”

Bucket held out the ax to the Gossiper.

“Thank you,” said the Gossiper, taking it.

He fit it in his hand and raised it high into the air, beginning a wild, melodious chant. The narrow walls caught the singsong phrases and flung them back and forth so that the little area between them seemed to be filled with many-voiced chanting, as if a choir were chanting. As the chant went on, the shadows deepened even further, and in the shadows there was a stirring and a sound—the sound of many padding feet.

Mary screamed, and Cornwall jerked up his sword, then lowered it slowly. “God save us now,” he said.

There seemed to be hundreds of them, little more than shadows in the shadows, but delineated enough even in the gloom so they could be seen for what they were—great brutish gnarly men, naked for large part, although some of them wore pelts about their middles. They slouched on knees that did not want to straighten out, and they walked bent forward from the waist. They carried shafts with crude stone points attached, and their eyes gleamed redly in the gloom.

High in the brightness of the sky, the ranks of harpies ceased to spiral upward and began their dive. They hurtled down in a mass attack and Cornwall, watching, knew that this time there was no chance to stop them. He reached out his free arm and drew Mary close against him.

Savage yells drowned out the chanting of the Gossiper. The gnarly men were screaming in a frenzy and shaking their spears at the diving harpies. The shadowy men moved in closer, crowding in. The gorge seemed filled with them.

The harpies plunged down between the looming walls. Then, suddenly, the charge was broken. In midair they windmilled their wings to check their plunge, bumping into one another, a flurry of beating wings and flying feathers. They squalled in surprise and outrage, and beneath them the gnarly men howled in exultant triumph.

The Gossiper ceased his chanting and cried out in a loud voice. “Now, run! Run for your lives!”

Cornwall pushed Mary behind him. “Follow me,” he said. “Stay close. I'll open up a path.”

He lowered his head and charged, expecting resistance from the press of bodies all about him. But there was no resistance. He plowed through the gnarly men as if they had been a storm of autumn-blown leaves. Ahead of him Jones stumbled and fell, screaming as his mangled arm came in contact with the stone beneath him. Cornwall stooped and caught him, lifting him, slinging him across his shoulder. Ahead of him all the others, including Mary, were racing through the drifts of shadowy gnarly men. Glancing upward, he saw that the harpies were breaking free from the constrictions of the rock walls of the gorge, bursting out into sunlit sky.

Just ahead was light where the gorge ended on what appeared to be a level plain. The gnarly men were gone. He passed the Gossiper who was stumping along as rapidly as he could, grunting with his effort. Ahead of the Gossiper, the little white dog skipped along with a weaving, three-legged gait, Coon loping at his side.

Then they were out of the gorge, running more easily now. Ahead of them, a few miles out on the little plain, which was ringed in by towering mountains, loomed a fairy building—as Jones had said, all froth and lace, but even in its insubstantiality, with a breathtaking grandeur in it.

“You can let me down now,” said Jones. “Thank you for the lift.”

Cornwall slowed to a halt and lowered him to his feet.

Jones jerked his head at the injured arm. “The whole damn thing's on fire,” he said, “and it's pounding like a bell.”

He fell into step with Cornwall. “My vehicle's just up ahead,” he said. “You can see it there, off to the right. I have a hypodermic—Oh, hell, don't ask me to explain. It's a magic needle. You may have to help me with it. I'll show you how.”

Coming across the meadow that lay between them and the fairy building was a group of beings, too distant to be seen with any distinctness except that it could be seen that one of them stood taller than the others.

“Well, I be damned,” said Jones. “When I was here before, I wandered all about and there was no one here to greet me, and now look at the multitude that is coming out to meet us.”

Ahead of all the others ran a tiny figure that yipped and squealed with joy, turning cartwheels to express its exuberance.

“Mary!” it yipped. “Mary! Mary! Mary!”

“Why,” Mary said, astounded, “I do believe it is Fiddle-fingers. I have wondered all along where the little rascal went to.”

“You mean the one who made mud pies with you?” asked Cornwall.

“The very one,” said Mary.

She knelt and cried out to him, and he came in with a rush to throw himself into her arms. “They told me you were coming,” he shrieked, “but I could not believe them.”

He wriggled free and backed off a way to have a look at her. “You've gone and grown up,” he said accusingly. “I never grew at all.”

“I asked at the Witch House,” said Mary, “and they told me you had disappeared.”

“I have been here for years and years,” the little brownie said. “I have so many things to show you.”

By now the rest of those who were coming in to meet them had drawn close enough for them to see that most of them were little people, a dancing, hopping gaggle of brownies, trolls, elves, and fairies. Walking in their midst was a somber manlike figure clothed in a long black gown, with a black cowl pulled about his head and face. Except that it seemed he really had no face—either that or the shadow of the cowl concealed his face from view. And there was about him a sort of mistiness, as if he walked through a fogginess that now revealed and now concealed his shape.

When he was close to them, he stopped and said in a voice that was as somber as his dress, “I am the Caretaker, and I bid you welcome here. I suspect you had some trouble with the harpies. At times they become somewhat overzealous.”

“Not in the least,” said Hal. “We gently brushed them off.”

“We have disregarded them,” said the Caretaker, “because we have few visitors. I believe, my dear,” he said, speaking to Mary, “that your parents were here several years ago. Since then, there have been no others.”

“I was here a few days ago,” said Jones, “and you paid no attention to me. I think you made a deliberate effort to make it seem that this place was deserted.”

“We looked you over, sir,” said the Caretaker. “Before we made ourselves known to you, we wanted to find out what kind of thing you were. But you left rather hurriedly.…”

Mary interrupted him. “You say that they were here,” she said, “my parents. Are they here no longer, then?”

“They went to another place,” said the Caretaker. “I will tell you of that and much more a little later on. All of you will join us at table, will you not?”

“Now that you speak of it,” said the Gossiper, “I believe that I could do with a small bit of nourishment.”

38

The Caretaker sat at the head of the table, and now it was apparent that he, indeed, did not have a face. Where the face should have been, underneath the cowl, was what seemed an area of fogginess, although now and then, Cornwall thought, watching him, there was at times faint, paired red sparks that might take the place of eyes.