Land of Unreason (14 page)

            "Good evening, highborn
sir. It is my pleasure to extend you the welcome of the Kobold Caverns. How
intelligent of you to come and see the wonders of our beautiful place with your
own eyes! May I hope you will be with us for a long time? Will you permit me to
join you in a glass of beer?"

            The last words came out loud
in an enormous silence punctuated only by the waltz drumming. Barber knew what
it was now; it was the sound of hammers.

            "Why, I wouldn't mind
some beer, thanks," he said. "But what I really want is to see
whoever's in charge here. I'm an ambassador from King Oberon, and—"

            A vertical frown leaped into
being between the gray dwarf's eyebrows. "Excuse, please," he said,
and turning to the room, threw up his arm. "Go on!" he shouted.
"This does not concern you." All over the room faces turned back to
the tables and the uproar of song instantly began again in full volume.
Gold-badge turned back to Barber.

            "Ah," he sighed,
"observe how cheerful the dear fellows are. Only the industrious can be so
truly happy. Is that not the answer to the slanders that are pronounced against
us? Will you come this way, please?"

            He gripped Barber's arm and
steered him down an aisle between two tables of shouting kobolds, with the
other two guides coming along behind. "I trust you enjoyed your journey,
highborn sir?" He glanced at Barber's shoulders, then sighed again.
"Ah, but you winged fairies are fortunate—born in a different world, so to
speak. All we poor kobolds obtain we must earn by the sweat of our brows."

            Barber thought of his trip
through the desert and smiled internally. "You seem to have made yourselves
very comfortable here, though," he said courteously. It would not do to
push matters about the swords.

            "We do our best. All we
ask is peace in which to carry on our honest labors." He swung Barber
around at a table in a recess where five bearded kobolds were trying to sing a
part song but missing badly because none of them seemed able to remember when
he should come in. "Here we are. You can go." He motioned to the
occupants of the table. Two of them stood up docilely enough, but the one at
the back brought his beer mug down with a bang.

            "This is organized
inefficiency!" he bawled. 'Til make a report to the section! I'll—"

            He came to a mouth-open stop
as Barber's guide stepped forward, fingering the filigree badge, then leaped to
his feet, bowing and knuckling his forehead. "I beg your humble pardon,
worshipful sir. I did not know you were authorized. I—"

            "Next time it will be
the White Pit," said Gold-badge evenly. "Please be seated, highborn
sir, and try our kobold beer. Drink—and die, you know; don't drink—and die
anyway. Therefore, let's drink. Ha, ha, ha."

            "Ha, ha, ha,"
clacked his two companions in obedient chorus. A mug of beer was thrust into
Barber's hand. It was delicious, somewhat with the flavor of bock, but had a
tang that gave warning of a particularly heady brew.

            "Are you not partly of
mortal kindred, highborn sir?" inquired Gold-badge. "I thought so;
something about the eyes. You will enjoy seeing our mushroom plantations. Krey
here can show you all through them. He used to be a deputy in the Provender
Section."

            "Till the medical
discovered I had a natural affinity for beer," said one of the gray-clads.
He had a young face and pleasant smile over a jaw heavy enough to be cast iron.

            "I'd like very much to
see them sometime," said Barber, "but just at present I'm here on
really important business."

            "Oh, business!"
All three burst into a gale of laughter, which the two assistants ended by
sputtering into their beer, while Gold-badge laid a hand on Barber's arm.
"Pardon us, highborn, sir, but it is not permitted to discuss business at
this hour in the Kobold Caverns."

            That beer was heady; Barber
could feel a spot of warmth on each cheekbone. But he was not so far gone as to
miss the fact that this was a particularly elaborate version of the run-around.
He grinned to show appreciation of a joke on himself, and pushed ahead:
"You'll have to excuse me. I don't know your local customs. But I'm an
ambassador and by international custom have the right of transacting business
at any time."

            "So?" Gold-badge's
eyes narrowed a trifle. "I did not really understand, highborn sir. It is
most fortunate that we have met; for in addition to being of the Incoming
Section which receives guests, I am also of the Welcoming Section to greet
ambassadors. Doubtless you have special credentials to prove your character—our
lady Titania's wand, or His Radiance's ring, or even a mere warrant in
writing?"

            "I did have but
I—" Shame flooded Barber at the memory of how he had lost the wand and he
came to a halt. The triple laughter blended into the sound of the ceaseless
waltz song, and Gold-badge dug him in the ribs:

            "Ha, ha, hal Never
mind,
Mr.
Ambassador, we won't give you away. We take things easy in the
Kobold Caverns and the drinks are on the government. Finish that one and have
another."

            Barber drank.

            At one point in the
subsequent proceedings he caught himself trying to explain the Binomial
Theorem, of which he knew rather less than his audience, to a group that seemed
passionately interested. At another he was leading them in a vigorous rendition
of "The Bastard King of England." Then Gold-badge seemed somehow to
have slipped away, the hall and chorus were gone, and he was descending a long,
dim passage with Krey and the other gray-clad receptionist; a passage where the
only sound was the three-quarter beat of the forges.

            The passage slanted in
involuted curves under a ceiling just tall enough to give him headroom. Torches
smoked on the walls here and there, dripping an occasional spark, and where
their light fell strongest the wall was perspiring in big, dank drops. The
black mouths of other tunnelings yawned to right and left at each turn; there
were no lights in them.

            "... our mountain
mushrooms, cooked in a butter of beechnuts," Krey was saying, "I have
mush room
in my stomach for them. Ha, ha, ha."

            "Ha, ha, hahaha,"
the passage echoed sepulchrally. At each branching tunnel the sound of the
hammer-beats was louder and clearer. When they reached the next
turn-and-entrance Barber pretended to stagger, and a little illogically vexed
at finding how easy it was to let himself go, clutched vainly at the smooth
wall, slid and lay with his head half in the side tunnel. The hammer blows
drowned Krey's footsteps (he had on some kind of soft shoes) but Barber's ear
caught the accent of his voice and the note of a retreating laugh.
Bumpity-bump, bump-bump, bump-bump went the hammers to the sound of a mentally
hummed "Blue Danube"; and the floor was cold stone, but an enormous
alcoholic weariness invaded Barber's limbs and it was suddenly pleasant to lie
right there.

            "Mus' get up," he
told himself fuzzily, but only managed to twitch a leg while half his brain
cried a warning to a too-well-satisfied other half.

            Clang! Somebody dropped
something. The eldritch idea assailed Barber that the sound represented the
fall of Krey's face when that strong-chinned worthy discovered his
disappearance. Laughter released his paralysis; chuckling over the inane
drunken humor of the idea, he pulled himself to knees, then feet. The side
passage was as black as the inside of a dog, sloping down rather steeply] and
he had to keep one hand on the wall for support as well as direction. But fifty
or a hundred yards on it turned suddenly and he found himself at the head of a
flight of low steps, looking down into a wide cavern. There was a torch in the
wall near him; it showed a shapeless mound of something occupying the whole
center of the cave, covered over with a cloth. Right at the head of the stairs
was a small iron bar set across the passage about two feet up. The latter puzzled
him till he remembered that the kobolds were the only people of Fairyland who
could touch iron. The bar would be good as a locked door to anyone but himself,
but he stepped over it and down the stairs.

            The cloth was loose. He
lifted one edge and gave a whistle, for there they were: rapiers, sabers,
claymores, panzerstechers, yataghans, cutlasses, and dozens of other kinds of
swords whose names he did not even know, each kind in its own bundle and
thousands of them altogether. This was what the kobolds were trying to hide
from him all right, but what could he—

            "So."

            The tone was even, but
nasty. Barber, a cold perspiration of sudden sobriety making a little spot
between his shoulder blades, turned and looked into the eyes of Krey. The
pleasant smile was gone; in the second or two that they stood gazing at each
other, the kobold fumbled a little silver whistle out of his tunic and blew.
Instantly there were shouts and the sound of running feet; another door at the
back of the room, which Barber had not noticed, was filled with dwarfish
figures.

            For a moment the idea of
seizing up one of the blades and slashing out among them leaped through
Barber's head—but where would he go among those complex tunnels? Krey seemed to
follow his thoughts.

            "I advise you not to
attempt resistance," he said coldly. Barber noticed that among the
crowding kobolds at the back door a disciplined battalion with spears in their
hands were pushing forward. The heads of the spears were leaf-shaped and looked
extremely sharp. He dropped his hands at his side in a gesture of surrender.

            "It is too bad,"
Krey went on, "that you must spoil a fine evening by abusing the
hospitality of the Caverns. Now you must bear the consequences ... Take him to
the trial room!"

            One of the spearmen jabbed
Barber in the leg. He jumped and yelped. "Damn it! I didn't ask for your
hospitality and I don't think very much of it. I'm here as an ambassador and I
claim diplomatic immunity."

            "Diplomatic immunity
confers no license to break the criminal laws." Krey turned his back; the
guards closed round Barber, and with lowered spear points, shepherded him
toward the back door of the room. There was a passage with torches; it
branched, and Barber was urged down the fork to the right, along a ramp and
through an arch.

            He was in a long and high
cavern from whose walls and ceiling projected elaborate carved wood
dingleberries in the most atrocious taste. At the far end a kobold with a long
nose and prick ears was seated before a table on a low dais, writing feverishly
and surrounded by a perfect mountain of papers. The way to his seat was lined
by a double row of kobold guards with swords in their hands, standing rigidly
and staring at each other. Barber was urged down the alley between them to the
foot of the dais, and one of the spearmen let the butt of his weapon drop to
the floor with a thump.

            The long-nosed kobold looked
up with a sour expression. "Guard Section Eleven. Prisoner found spying in
arsenal room. Authorization of Krey, Incoming Section Four," said the
spearman, in the metallic voice of an old-fashioned phonograph.

            "Look here,"
Barber burst in, "you're going to have some trouble about this. I'm a
perfectly legal ambassador from King Oberon and—"

            Long-nose took a new sheet
of paper and scribbled. "Your protest is noted and rejected," he cut
in. "All residents of the Kobold Caverns, whether metic or natural, are
subject to the same restrictions. I sentence you to—"

            "But I'm not a
resident!" cried Barber desperately. He could see two of the sword-bearers
start toward him, and the thought of what the sentence might be gave him cold
shivers. "I'm not even a resident of Fairyland. I'm a mortal."

            Long-nose's brows elevated.
"A mortal! Just a moment, please, I must find a precedent. Though I warn
you it will not be so pleasant for you, since you have now added perjury to the
other charge. Mortals do not have wings." He turned to one of the mounds
of papers which reached desk-high from the floor, and began shuffling through
them. They had not been disturbed for a long time, apparently, for a little
cloud of dust rose from them. Long-nose's face worked convulsively, his head
went back, and he emitted a thundering sneeze.