King of the Scepter'd Isle (Song of Earth) (28 page)

“Oh, why can’t I!” she shouted, a dreadful despair in her voice.

And then she was gone and Fang slept on. Different and more gnomelike creatures entered his dreams and brushed away the lingering images of the girl on the cliff. The new creatures were still frightening, however, and he groaned in his sleep.

He was awakened by the jerk as the cart stopped dead. The night was inky black.

“Go and see what the problem is, Fang.” The Miggot spoke into his ear.

“But what if it’s a fool?” He’d been dreaming of fools who prowled the forest on nights such as this: big gnomes, insane and hairy, with gnarled clubs and a total disregard for the Examples.

“What the hell are you talking about, Fang?”

“Never mind.” The image was fading and he began to feel a little foolish himself. He jumped from the cart into the darkness—and found himself imprisoned in snow up to his chest. “Help! Miggot!” he cried.

“What?” He felt the Miggot’s breath on his face. “What are you playing at now, Fang?”

“I’m stuck! Pull me out!”

Grumbling, the Miggot got his hands under Fang’s armpits and tugged. Fang scrambled back onto the cart, panting. “Try your side,” he suggested.

The Miggot
peered into the blackness, then lowered a circumspect foot. “It’s deep snow here too. You know what, Fang? We’re stuck in a drift.”

“Perhaps we can dig ourselves out,” said Fang.

“How can we? The drift will get deeper the farther forward we go—and rabbits can’t go backward; everybody knows that. We’re doomed, Fang. The mission is a failure.” He slumped back, defeated. “I should have listened to Elmera.”

It was this last remark that told Fang how deeply into despair the Miggot had plunged. Cold, tiredness, and lack of nourishing beer had taken its toll.

“I’m going to take a look at the back,” he said.

“How can you take a look? It’s pitch-black!”

“I’ll feel my way around,” snapped Fang, losing patience. “I’m not going to sit here until I freeze. I suggest you have a drink of beer and pull yourself together.” He crawled into the covered section of the cart. It was warmer here, and the baby seemed to be sleeping easily. He wormed his way past, ducked under the back awning, and stepped carefully to the ground. Here the snow came only to his knees. It would be possible to back the cart out if the rabbits were unhitched from the front and reattached to this end. But the task of unhitching the rabbits and getting them out of the drift would be insuperable. Up front, the snow would be well over his head. Fang sighed and leaned against the cart to consider the situation. The blackness pressed in on him, thick and impenetrable.

Or was it?

Wasn’t that a light a little way back? A faint yellow chink, illuminating a thread of snowy ground?

Fang plodded toward it.

It was a door, set into a bank at the side of the path. Snow had been cleared from around it. He pounded on it, shouting. It opened.

Clubfoot Trimble stood there, showing no surprise. “Oh, it’s you, Fang,” he said in depressed tones. “At least some one had the courage to come out on a night like this. It’s very bad for trade, this kind of weather, I can tell you.”

“Clubfoot
!”

“Who did you expect?”

“Well, nobody really. I hadn’t thought about it.” And Fang followed Clubfoot into the Disgusting Drinking Hole where a fire blazed merrily and benches stood empty, awaiting customers. “I didn’t know you stayed open so late.”

“What else is there to do?” Clubfoot’s wife had been accidentally killed a year ago, stepped on by a giant whose identity only Fang knew. For a while he’d turned into a recluse and, like the Gooligog, had gone to live in the marshy land to the west. More recently he had been elected to take over from the late Tom Grog as host of the Disgusting. He was a good choice, being given to rambling monologues to which nobody felt obliged to listen and which provided a restful background to serious drinking.

“Clubfoot,” said Fang seriously, “Miggot and I are on a mission of great importance. The very future of gnomedom hangs on the outcome of our odyssey. What do you think of that?”

“Odysseys are like life,” said Clubfoot, who had ambitions of becoming gnomedom’s resident philosopher. “They must be built on a solid foundation of beer.”

That statement, made before a warm fire to a cold and discouraged gnome, seemed to embody all the wisdom of the ages. “I’ll have a mug of your best dark,” said Fang.

The beer was drinkable, but it was apparent that Clubfoot had not yet achieved the high brewing standards of his predecessor. The two gnomes settled at the fireside, feet stretched toward the flames. “Tell me about your odyssey,” said Clubfoot. “Where are you bound?”

“Our destination is secret,” said Fang, glancing over his shoulder. “And so is our cargo.”

“That’s good.” Clubfoot nodded wisely, a response he’d been practicing lately. “That’s good. It bodes well for the future of gnomedom that two distinguished gnomes should undertake a secret odyssey.
And where is the Miggot now? Or is that secret too?”

“The Miggot is stuck in a drift,” said Fang unhappily.

“Shouldn’t you be digging him out?”

Fang eyed him speculatively, wondering how much he might safely reveal. “The Miggot is not personally stuck.”

“But the cargo is?”

“The cargo is not personally stuck, either.”

“Then what is personally stuck?”

“The cart.”

“Oh.” A great light dawned on Clubfoot’s broad face. “I understand.” He thought about it for a moment, then said, “No, I don’t understand, Fang. It’s probably no business of mine, but I’ve had experience with carts. And if they are hauled by rabbits, as they usually are, they don’t get stuck in drifts.”

“I can assure you our cart is stuck, Clubfoot.”

“Then what are the rabbits doing?”

“Sleeping, I expect.”

“Well, of course you’re stuck, if your rabbits are asleep,” cried Clubfoot. “You must wake them up. They’ve been fooling you. I expect they stopped pulling when they ran into the drift?”

“Instantly.”

“Well, all you do, Fang, my friend,” and Clubfoot rose to his feet and laid an arm around Fang’s shoulders, “is to make them dig. Rabbits like lying in snowdrifts because they’re out of the wind that way. They won’t dig their way out unless they’re forced into it. A good kick up the backside will usually improve their selfish attitude. And then they’ll tunnel right through that drift, pulling the cart behind. Snow is soft, Fang. It’s no obstacle to a rabbit with a determined gnome behind him.”

Fang was already draining his mug and wiping the foam from his beard. “You’re right, Clubfoot. If you’ve ever had the feeling I wasn’t always listening to you, I’m sorry. It won’t happen again. I must go. The odyssey must press on!”

And with these
inspiring words he hurried into the snowy night.

He found the Miggot feeding the baby gloomily. “Oh, it’s you, Fang. I thought you’d wandered off into the snow to die, not wishing to be a burden to me.”

“The odyssey must press on!”

“What the devil are you talking about?”

“I have an idea, Miggot. Leave the baby for a moment and come and watch!”

Grumbling, the Miggot followed him forward. A faint hint of morning had lightened the sky, and now the drift could be dimly seen, rising before them like a pale mountain. From out of the drift poked the dark rumps of two rabbits.

Fang balanced himself on the dashboard and drove a vigorous boot into the right-hand rump.

“What did you kick Gene for?” cried the Miggot, outraged.

To even matters up, Fang kicked Thunderer with equal force.

The rumps stirred. Fang kicked them both again. They became galvanized into action, surging and bucking. Snow began to spray past the gnomes. The cart lurched and began to move forward. Soon the mountainous drift closed over them as they inched their way through a blizzard of snow from the rabbits’ kicking paws.

“It’s all a matter of understanding rabbits,” said Fang a little later as they emerged from the far side of the drift.

By dawn the snow had ceased and the cart was skirting the beach, keeping close under the western cliff to avoid Drexel Poxy’s settlement. The sea rolled toward them, choppy and clawed by the wind. They arrived at Pong’s cave and reined the rabbits to a halt.

Pong’s face peered fearfully out at them.

“Oh, it’s you, Fang,” he said, relieved. “And the Miggot. That crunching I heard, it must have been the wheels of your cart. For a moment I thought it was Something Else.”

“Pong, we come on a
mission of grave importance.”

“Good. Come on in and have a drink of herb tea.”

“Pong doesn’t believe in beer,” Fang explained to the Miggot.

“You mean the most important leg of our journey is in the hands of a crank?”

“It’s the only thing Pong is crankish about. He has this theory that beer changes our behavior.”

“Bloody nonsense. It
normalizes
our behavior.”

“One has to keep one’s wits about one,” Pong explained. “Enemies are everywhere. I used to drink beer once, and it made me sleepy. When I’m sleepy, I’m at my most vulnerable.”

Tiredness and cold had honed the edge of the Miggot’s temper. “You’re not talking about that bloody lopster again?” he snarled. “I thought we’d explained all that to you!”

“So you did, Miggot. So you did.”

“How are things going in the Poxy camp?” Fang changed the subject hastily.

“Wonderfully well. I’ve been waiting to talk to you about that for some time.” Pong glanced shiftily at them. “I hope you don’t mind my …”

“Throwing your lot in with Drexel Poxy?”

“Well, yes. You and I have always been friends, Fang, and I wouldn’t want this to come between us.”

“Of course it comes between us,” shouted the Miggot suddenly, voicing a pent-up grievance, “you silly little bugger! Poxy is a conniving swine! Poxy wants to sell us out to the humans!”

“The Great Poxy believes in cooperation, and that’s what we’re doing. And it’s better for all of us. The giants supply us with food and stuff. The Lady Guinevere is a frequent visitor to the beach. She says she is our patron.”

“And what do you do in return?”

“Nothing, Miggot. The Lady Guinevere feeds us out of the goodness of her heart.”

“Why don’t you gather your own damned food?”

“These are early
days, and besides, it’s winter. The humans have kindly offered to tide us over until the spring crops are available. And there’s the Great Poxy’s Grand Scheme, of course.” He shut his mouth quickly, having said too much.

The Miggot was on to it in a flash. “Grand Scheme?”

“Nobody knows the details. But a whole new series of creatures will be produced, and the beach will flow with milk and honey.”

“Listen to me, Pong.” The Miggot’s eyes were fierce in the light of the fire. “Your Great Bloody Poxy’s talking nonsense. I’m the only gnome in Mara Zion who produces new creatures. I am the guardian of the Sharan, and that’s the way things are staying!”

“Don’t you think that’s a little selfish, Miggot? If you persist in that kind of outlook, no wonder the Great Poxy talks about taking steps.”

The Miggot stared at Pong, aghast. “Your mind has been warped! You’re talking heresy!” With an effort he got himself under control. “You’re questioning our whole society, Pong. The Guilds. One gnome, one job.”

Pong said, “We’re another society now, we beach gnomes. We have our leader and our Memorizer—your own father, Fang—and we need our Sharan. Or failing that, to use the words of the Great Poxy,
your
Sharan. We are new. Our needs are greater than yours.”

“Fang, this is worse than I ever imagined! Look at his eyes! Those are the eyes of a fanatic!”

“They do look a little bright. But there’s no point in arguing about it, Miggot. We have the journey to consider.”

“Pong,” said the Miggot, “forget what we’ve just been talking about. Put it out of your mind and listen to what I have to say. You must take us to Trevarron Isle again. Together with our cargo. The future of the gnomish race depends on it.”

“But what about the winter storms!” cried the Intrepid One.

“Pong, look into my eyes. Deeper. Deeper. Think of nothing at all, and repeat this after me: Bugger the winter storms.”

“Bugger the winter
storms,” said Pong woodenly.

“The winter storms are nothing to a sailor of my capabilities and genetic structure.”

“The winter storms are nothing to a sailor of my capabilities and genetic structure.”

“Miggot,” whispered Fang, impressed. “How did you do that?”

“The power of the gnomish eye. We’ll have no more trouble with him now. Pong! Let us provision the boat for our journey.”

Pong stared at him. “We’d be crazy to go out there in this weather. Have you seen those waves?”

“But you said they were nothing to a sailor of your capabilities,” Fang reminded him.

“Only because the Miggot wanted me to.”

“Pong,” said Fang, hating himself for what he was about to say, “do you remember your father? Now, what would people say—what would the Great Poxy say—if they knew that your timidity, and that alone, had doomed the gnomish species to extinction? They would say you were no better than Poop the Craven. The Miggot would make excuses for you, of course, being the kindly fellow that he is. He would say your genetic instability was no fault of your own. But no more would you be spoken of as Pong the Intrepid. Forevermore you would be Pong the Timorous, a victim of your father’s genes. And your grandfather, Pew the Valiant, would become suspect too. In fairness to gnomish history, I would have to examine my memory to confirm the accuracy of the exploits that earned him his name.

“However,” said Fang quickly, noticing a tear gathering in the corner of Pong’s eye, “there is the other side of the coin. All gnomes must know fear in order to overcome it. That’s where true courage lies. Do you know fear, Pong?”

“I know fear.”

“Then you are a fortunate gnome, for—”

“Let’s take the
bloody boat and go without him, Fang. You’re talking too much.”

“For yours is the opportunity to redeem the failures of your father and his father before him, so that evermore the name Pong the Intrepid will be spoken with awe and wonder. Bear in mind that I am the Memorizer. I will remember your deeds this day—and through me, all gnomedom will remember forever!”