Land of Unreason (26 page)

            "And what if they
did?"

            "Our death, perhaps;
but in any case the tempestuous anarch disorder which my very dear Lord and
King saved us from so long gone. This is what you must keep us from now, good
Barber."

            Fred Barber sat back in his
chair of pretense and looked from King to Queen. The picture was becoming
clearer, but:

            "Why must it be me?
What's the matter with Oberon?"

            "My own curst
laws!" The King brought his fist down on the table. "They hold for
all—no violences.

            Do I break 'em, I've let in
the forbidden thing, we have the old days back. Yet here's a scoundrelism will
hear no argument but sharps."

            "I may be awfully
dense, but again, why pick on me?"

            "Why, you're the
redbeard! You come of a hard race, have the iron I left out of my laws; must do
it in any case, and why not the sooner." He sang, to the same tune Malacea
and Cola had used:

-

"When
the redbeard comes again.

Then
shall fairies turn to men.

When
he touches the three places

He
shall know them by their faces."

-

           
As Oberon
chanted the absurd verse, a sense of excitement invaded Barber. Once more he
seemed on the edge of something he could not quite grasp, but now it was
something splendid and promising as the discovery of a new world. Almost
without realizing what he was doing, he stood up and clapped the great wings
together behind his back. All the people in the hall gave a shout; Oberon and
Titania stood up too, and the King extended his hand:

            "Go, then, Barber. You
are our stay and alliance as iron must cover and protect gold, however precious
and desirable the latter be."

-

            Go. Yes, but where?

            The exaltation lasted till
he had reached the castle gate, picked up his sword, and was winging out across
the sea of rock through clear moonlight. He had not thought of asking
directions, and it occurred to him that it would have done no good to ask. The
people of the court would have answered quite honestly that they did not know.
It was useless to expect from them precision in any physical or material
statement.

            Which way?

            He had begun by flying round
the castle in an Archimedian spiral, ever widening. Beneath, the tumbled rocks
gave no sign of life, nothing that might be a guide. Even the distant horizon
failed to show that gradation where the mountain country broke down to the
craggy moors over which he had sailed the previous evening. For all he knew he
might be flying straight back into Yorkshire and an aerial encounter with a
Messerschmitt 109. He debated mentally whether a return to his own world under
such circumstances would be more or less pleasant than continuing in this madhouse
Fairyland, but could reach no decision. He reflected that this would have sent
him into something like a panic a week before; now it merely afforded some
faint amusement as he sailed along on tireless wings, now and again
experimenting with the subtle pleasure of gliding.

            It must have taken three or
four hours of this kind of flight to bring him to the gorge where he saw the
first tree, a scrawny conifer, clinging to the wall of a glen. He circled the
place two or three times, taking bearings, before sweeping on around the
now-wide circuit. Nothing but rock was visible at any other point, but when he
returned to the region of the tree he perceived that the glen had deepened to a
cleft between walls of stone, with a bright sliver of stream running down it,
and there were more trees.

            This might repay
investigation. He drove along down the stream, which for some time showed no
disposition to widen, but rather dropped deeper till it was running through a
canyon between walls that held scrubby plants in addition to the trees at the
bottom. But after maybe half an hour's flight more the rock walls suddenly
closed in from right and left; the stream, pinched to a thread, burst through a
narrow gate, and with a clamor audible even at his altitude, plunged down a
long waterfall into a deep bowl of a valley.

            The sides were precipices
save at the far lower end, where the stream escaped again, boiling through
broken boulders past walls that slanted toward the crests to reveal a glimpse
of something green beyond. The valley itself was maybe a mile across, all trees
around the base of the rocks, all trees along the bank of the stream, but in
between lush meadow. In the center of the meadow on the right bank a snow-white
unicorn was grazing.

            Barber slanted in for a
nearer look. Indubitable unicorn. But as he came down on soundless wing, the
moon-shadow of his passing flickered across the grass. The creature lifted its
head, neighed piercingly, and flung itself toward the trees along the river at
a headlong gallop. At the same moment Barber, hovering low, caught another
faint sound, regular-irregular, like the unicorn's hoof beats.
Tap, tap,
tappty-tap, tap.

           
Any life was
welcome and information after the blank thus far. He flipped his wings and
dropped lightly to a tiptoe landing on grass as gracious as a lawn. Back under
the shelter of the trees a shaft of yellow light reached upward, startling in
its contrast to the blue moonglow. Barber stepped toward it cautiously, wand in
left hand, the other ready to grip his sword.
Tap—tap—toe.

           
The light was
coming from a hole at the roots of an age-old tree. He got a glimpse of a small
bearded face surmounted by a green stovepipe hat with a feather in it. At the
same moment the face got a glimpse of him; there was a dull wooden slam and the
spot of light vanished.

            Barber stepped close to look
at the base of the tree, feeling around the spot where the light had been. His
fingers encountered a crevice, regular in outline—a door, made to look like
part of the roots.

            He rapped. The door gave a
dull sound of solidity but no result, nor was there any response when he tried
tapping it with the wand. But he was determined now to have converse with
whatever denizen of the valley lived within, so sat down and waited patiently.

            With the faintest creak the
door opened a little and the light crept cautiously out. Behind it the brown,
bearded face appeared.

            "Hello," said
Barber.

            "Hello yoursel',"
said the face. "Ye gave me a fright. Sure, I thought ye were someone
else."

            "My name's Barber. Who
did you think I was?"

            "A felly I know."
The elf fished around behind him, brought up a shoe and began working on it,
sitting on his doorsill. He spoke out of the left side of his mouth, the right
side being full of pegs: "Where would ye be goin' with that fine stick an'
all?"

            "I'm not quite sure. To
the Princes of the Ice, I think. Could you tell me which way they are?"

            The elf jerked a thumb
toward the outlet of the valley. "That way. Ye'll be wan of Oberon's folk.
The back o' me hand to ye, thin. If I'd known that— annyway, I'm hopin' the ice
people bate the livin' bedad out o' ye."

            "Very courteous of
you," remarked Barber drily. "You're on their side?"

            "Not at all, at all.
I'm hopin' that in the ind ye bate the princes, for 'tis mane divils they are.
But I'm hopin' they give ye a good taste o' the stick first."

            "Why?"

            "That's to pay ye out
for what Huon did to us."

            "And what did this Huon
do to you?"

            "Mane to say ye don't
know? A great Barney's bull o' a scandal, that was. Oberon would have the idee
o' civilizin' us, he called it, and sint Sir Huon to do his dirty work. Oh,
that was the disthressful time, with batin's and evictions and turnin' us into
frogs. Me own brother Usnech, the darlin', was wan o' those turned."

            "My word, I didn't know
Oberon went in for that sort of thing. When did this happen?"

            "Wan thousand, six
hundred, and eighty-four years ago, three months and sivin days to the
minute."

            "That seems like a long
time to carry a grudge. You certainly keep track of it."

            The elf wagged his head
stubbornly. "Murther's murther, and oppression's oppression, whether 'twas
tin thousand years ago or yesterday. And all because the boys would be havin'
their fun. Oh 'twas cruel; as though we'd forget and be friends."

            "Well, why not after
all this time? Didn't he make things better all around?"

            "And what does that
matter whin the heart is dead within ye? Be off with you, mortal, and tell that
royal rogue he'll get no help from the luchrupans." The elf drove the last
peg into the shoe with a vicious whack, dropped back in his hole and slammed
the door.

            It occurred to Barber that
he had not asked for help, but there was no use mentioning this to a closed
door. He was just getting up to go when he saw what he had not noticed
before—that a climbing rose wound round the base of the tree, embracing it so
closely that there was barely room for the mannikin's door to open. Though it
was full night the vine bravely lifted bud and open flower to the sky, rich
double blooms with petals of mingled white and red, with an almost piercing
fragrance. Barber bent to admire one; a vagrant air from nowhere bent the
branch ever so slightly toward him as though to invite plucking.

-

"Roslein,
Roslein, Roslein rot,

Roslein
auf der Heiden ..."

-

           
he murmured as
he set it in his buttonhole, ran a few steps across the green lawn to gain
momentum for the start and was just about to take off when a tiny shaft of
light shot from the reopened door, a voice called "Up the ice!" and
there was a crisp wooden slam. Barber laughed as he rode upward, spiraling out
of the encircling cliffs. There was no further sign of the unicorn; but now as
he drove toward the valley outlet movement again showed between him and the
moon.

            Company of any kind were
welcome, but as long wingbeats carried him toward this company he perceived it
was not human but avian—the same big black bird that had looked at him across
the window sill that morning, or its twin brother. It stretched its neck under
a wing to regard him as he approached and remarked "Krawk!" in a
friendly manner.

            "Hello, birdie,"
said Barber. "Would you be a raven? You look pretty well grown."

            "Krawk!" said the
bird again, did a marvelous inside loop and fell in beside him. It was
evidently as fond of companionship as Barber himself.

            Below, the stream had broken
from its valley prison and was flowing through a wide canyon with a rumble of
rapids. The mountains were still wild and rugged, but not quite so harsh or
waterless, slashed here and there with high gullies which evidently held
springs, for trees grew along them, closing in farther down to mantle all the
lower slopes. Barber eased downward to look for further signs of life. There
were none; and he was just turning back to glide up a long hill-current when a
wild shriek from the raven caught his ear.

            He half turned; the motion saved
him, for at that moment something big and black dropped on him from above, and
but for that warning would have caught him between the shoulders. As it was, a
violent blow carried him down toward the treetops, something long and sharp and
deadly dug through the back side of his trunks and came out with a rending of
cloth as Barber put his full power into his wingbeat.