Enchanted Pilgrimage

  “But it did no good,” said Cornwall.

  “How did you know that?” asked Foxy.

  “For one thing, the land continues sick.”

  “You are right,” said Foxy. “It did no good.”

  “And yet you stayed here all the time,” said Mary. “Since they built the castle. For you are the ones, aren’t you, who talked with the Beast?”

  “What there are left of us,” said Toad Face. “Some of us have died, although all of us lived many times longer than the folk we once were. We lived longer and we changed. It almost seemed that we lived longer to give us the chance to change. Century after century the changes came on us. You can see the changes.”

  “I am not so certain,” said Oliver, “that I believe all this. It seems impossible common folk would become the kind of things these are.”

  “It was the Beast that did it,” said Big Belly. “We could feel him changing us. We don’t know why he changed us, but he did.”

  “You should have left,” said Cornwall.

  “You do not understand,” said Foxy. “We took a pledge to stay. To stay with the Beast. After a time the people left, but we stayed on. We were afraid that if the Beast were left alone, he’d tear down the vault and be loosed upon the Wasteland. We couldn’t let that happen. We had to stand between the Wasteland and the Beast.”

  “And after a time,” said Toad Face, “there was no place for us to go. We were so changed there was no place would take us.”

  “I’m not inclined,” said Sniveley, “to believe a word of this. They have told us the story of the forming of a priesthood—a group of selfish, scheming leeches who fastened on the people. They used the Beast to gain an easy living and now, perhaps, the living is not so easy, since the people left, but it was at one time, and that was their purpose in saying they could converse with this Beast. Even now they would have us believe they have a noble purpose, standing, they say, between the Beast and the Wasteland. But they are no more than a gang of slickers, especially that one with the foxy face.”

  “Perhaps they are,” said Cornwall. “Perhaps what you say is right, but let us hear the rest of it.”

  “That’s all of it,” said Big Belly. “And every word is truth.”

  “But the Beast is dead,” said Hal. “You have no worries anymore. Sure, he told you to do something when he died, but you don’t have to do it. You’re now beyond his reach.”

  “Perhaps he can’t reach you,” said Foxy. “Perhaps not the others of your party. But he can reach us. We have been with him for so long, perhaps becoming so much a part of him, that in many ways he can still live in us, and even in death he can reach out—yes, even in death he can reach out.…”

  “God, yes,” said Cornwall, “lit could happen that way.”

  “We know he’s dead,” said Big Belly. “His body lies rotting in the vault. He was a long time dying, and we seemed to die a little with him. We could feel the dying and the death. But in the reaches of the night, in the time of silences, he is still there. Perhaps not to others; probably only to ourselves.”

  “Okay, then,” said Hal. “Say we accept your word for all of this. You’ve taken a lot of time and trouble to build up your story, and you have some purpose in your mind. I submit it is now time to tell us of that purpose. You said there was a chore that you wanted done and that we could do it because we were not as fearful of the Chaos Beast as you are.”

  “The task requires entering the vault,” said Foxy.

  “You mean into the vault with that dead monstrosity!” cried Mary.

  “But why?” asked Cornwall, horrified. “Why into the vault?”

  “Because,” said Foxy, “there is something there that must be taken out. Something the Beast said should be taken out.”

  “You know what this thing is?”

  “No, we don’t know what it is. We asked and the Beast would not tell us. But we know that it is there. We took the cover from the vault and looked down into it. It took all the courage we had, but we managed it. Not for very long. We just had a glimpse, but we saw the object that must be taken out. We took one look and fled.…”

  “And you want us to get it out?”

  “If you would, please,” said Foxy.

  “Could you tell us what it is?” asked Mary.

  “We saw only a part of it, or I suppose we saw only a part of it. We cannot imagine what it is. It appears to be a cage, a round cage. There are strips of metal formed into a cage. It is about so big.” Foxy held his hands about a foot apart.

  “Embedded in the body of the beast?”

  “That is right,” said Foxy.

  “It will be a nasty job,” said Gib.

  “I do not like it,” said Sniveley. “There is something here that’s evil. There is more than they have told us.”

  “Perhaps,” said Cornwall, “but they have a problem, and I suppose there is a price. Not,” he said to Foxy, “a few chickens and a pig.”

  “The goodness of the deed,” suggested Foxy. “For the sake of chivalry.”

  “Don’t talk to us of chivalry,” snapped Oliver. “Chivalry is dead. It didn’t last too long. It was a rotten idea while it did. So come up with something solid. If you don’t, come morning we will leave.”

  “You dare not leave,” said Foxy smugly. “The Hellhounds are lurking out there on the plain. They’ll snap you up before you’ve gone a league. The Hellhounds never loved you, and now they love you less since you killed the giant.”

  “You suggest we’re trapped in here,” said Hal.

  “Perhaps not,” said Big Belly. “It’s possible we could help you.”

  “They’re working together,” Sniveley charged. “These jokers and the Hellhounds. They’re putting the squeeze on us.”

  “If you mean,” said Toad Face, “that we are friendly with the Hellhounds and with their aid have devised a devious scheme to get you to do this small service for us, you couldn’t be more wrong.”

  “Come to think of it,” said Gib, “we never saw a Hellhound until we saw the castle. We watched and waited for them and they never did show up until we reached the castle. They waited for us here. They could have jumped us anyplace along the way, but they waited for us here.”

  “For years,” said Foxy, “the Hounds have nosed around this castle, thinking they might catch us unaware. It has been war between us almost from the start. In recent years they have grown more cautious, for we have made them smart, and they have sorely learned what we can do to them. Time after time we’ve whomped them with various kinds of magic, but they still hang around. They’ve never given up. Now, however, at the very sight of us, they tuck in their tails and scamper. We have them hexed.”

  “It’s the castle they want?” asked Gib. “Not really you they’re after, but the castle?”

  “That is right,” said Foxy. “It’s a thing of pride with them, to be possessors of the Castle of the Chaos Beast. They never, you understand, have really amounted to anything at all. They have been the rowdies and the brawlers of the Wasteland. They’ve been feared, of course, but they’ve never been respected. But to hold the castle—that might give them status and respect.”

  “And you say you have them hexed?”

  “They dare not lay a hand on us. They won’t even come too close. But they hope that through some trick someday they will overcome us.…”

  “Is it your thought,” asked Cornwall, “that you can give us safe escort when we leave the castle?”

  “That is our thought,” said Foxy.

  “We enter the vault and bring out the object, and once that is done, you furnish us escort until there is no longer any danger from the Hellhounds.”

  “They’re lying to us,” Oliver said. “They’re scared striped of the Hounds. Just like they are scared of the Chaos Beast.”

  “What difference does it make?” asked Mary. “You all have made up your minds to pull this thing from the vault. You wonder what it is, and you won’t rest easy until you fi
nd out what it is.…”

  “Still,” said Cornwall to Foxy, “you do promise us escort?”

  “That we do,” said Foxy.

  “And it better be good,” said Hal, “or we’ll come back and clean out this nest of you.”

  28

  The stench was green. It struck the pit of the stomach, it clogged the nostrils, burned the throat, watered the eyes; it made the mind reel. It was an alien foulness that seemed to come from somewhere other than the Earth, a violent corruption deep from the guts of Hell.

  They had labored in it for hours, setting up the poles to form the tripod above the opening of the vault (although Cornwall realized he could no longer think of it as a vault, but rather as a pit), rigging the pulley, threading the rope to run in the pulley.

  And, now that all was ready, Cornwall leaned over the edge of the opening to glance down into the mass of putrescence that filled the area, a gelatinous matter not quite liquid, not quite solid—a sight he had avoided until now. For the mass itself seemed to have some of the same obscene, stomach-wrenching quality that characterized the stench that came boiling out of it. The stench was bad enough; the stench combined with the sight of the vault’s contents was almost unbearable. He doubled over, wracked by the dry retching that brought up nothing, for the contents of his stomach had been emptied long ago.

  “Why don’t you let me, Mark?” said Gib, standing at his elbow. “I don’t seem to mind it as much—”

  “You don’t mind it so much,” said Cornwall harshly, “that you vomited up your goddamned guts.”

  “But I am lighter,” argued Gib. “I don’t weigh more than a third of what you do; I’ll be easier to handle on the rope.”

  “Stop it, Gib,” Sniveley said angrily. “We talked this out hours ago. Sure, you weigh a third less than Mark, you also have only a third the strength.”

  “Maybe we won’t need any strength.”

  “That thing down there,” said Hal, “could be hard to yank out. If it grew out of the body of the Beast, it still could be rooted there.”

  “The body is a mass of soup,” said Gib. “It is nothing but a puddle.”

  “If it were,” said Cornwall, “the cage or globe or whatever it is would have sunk. It wouldn’t still be there.”

  “We can’t be sure of that,” said Gib. “It could be floating.”

  “Let’s stop this talk,” said Cornwall. “As Sniveley said, we decided it. We talked it over and decided it on logic. I have more strength than any of you, and strength may be needed. I grab hold of it, and you guys pull me out along with it; it might take even more strength than I have to hang onto it. The rest of you together can handle the rope—that is, if Mary’s here to help. Where the hell is Mary?”

  “She went down to start the fire under the kettle,” said Sniveley. “We’ll need hot water to take baths once we get out of here.…”

  “If hot water will take it off,” said Oliver.

  “Big Belly gave us some soap,” said Sniveley.

  “What would they need of soap?” asked Oliver. “From the smell of them, they never use it.”

  Cornwall yelled at them. “Cut out the goddamn jabber! What’s soap got to do with it? What’s hot water got to do with it? If a fire had to be started, any one of you could have started it. We need Mary here to help handle the rope, and what is more …”

  He let his voice run down, ashamed of himself. What was he doing, shouting at them? It was the stench, he knew—it nibbled the mind, it frazzled the nerves, it squeezed the guts; in time it could turn a man into a shrieking maniac.

  “Let’s get on with it,” he said.

  “I’ll get Mary,” said Oliver. “I’ll stay and watch the fire.”

  “Forget the fire,” said Hal. “Come back with her. We could need your help.”

  “If we had a hook,” said Hal, “we might be able to hook it out.”

  “But we haven’t got a hook,” said Hal, “and no metal to make one. They have a forge down there and no metal.…”

  “They hid the metal,” said Sniveley, “just like they’re hiding themselves. There’s no hide nor hair of them.”

  “We could get metal from one of our pots,” said Gib.

  “It’s easier this way,” said Cornwall. “Simple and direct. Tie that rope around me and let’s get started.”

  “You’ll suffocate,” said Sniveley.

  “Not if I tie a scarf around my mouth and nose.”

  “Make sure that knot is tied securely,” Sniveley said to Hal. “We can’t take a chance. If Mark falls into the mess, we’ll never get him out.”

  “I know about knots,” said Hal. “A good slip noose. It will tighten up.” He said to Cornwall, “How does it feel?”

  “It feels fine. Now give me that scarf.”

  He wrapped the scarf around his face, covering nose and mouth.

  “Hold still,” said Gib. “I’ll tie it.”

  Oliver came scampering up the stairs, followed by Mary.

  “Everyone’s here,” said Hal. “Grab hold of that rope, all of you. Hang on for your life. Let him down easy.”

  Cornwall leaned over the opening and gagged. It was not the smell so much, for the scarf did offer some protection, but the sight—the sea of crawling corruption, a creature dead and rotting, with nowhere for the rot to go, a puddle of putrescence, held within the vault. It was green and yellow, with streaks of red and black, and there seemed to be within it some kind of feeble current that kept it swirling slowly, so slowly that no real motion could be detected, although there was a sense of motion, almost of aliveness.

  He gagged, gritting his teeth. His eyes began to smart and water.

  He couldn’t live down there for long, he knew. It had to be down quickly and out again as fast as possible. He flexed his right hand, as if he wanted to be sure it was in working order when he reached out to grab the cage or whatever it might be that was down there in the pit.

  The rope tightened around his chest. “All ready, Mark,” said Hal.

  He swung over the edge. The rope tightened and held him, lifting him a little. He let loose of the edge of the vault and felt his body swinging to the center of the opening. His body dropped jerkily and was brought swiftly to a halt.

  Up above him Hal was yelling. “Watch it! Take it slow! Let him down easy! Not too fast!”

  The stench rose up and hit him, engulfing him, smothering him. The scarf was not enough. The stench seeped through the fabric, and he was drowning in it. His belly slammed up and hit him in the face, then dropped into a place that had no bottom. His mouth filled with a vomit he would have sworn he didn’t have and was held there by the scarf wrapped about his face. He was blinded and disoriented. He clawed feebly with his hands. He tried to cry out, but no words came in his throat.

  Below him he could make out the noisome surface of corruption, and it seemed to be in violent motion. A wave of it rose and reached for him, fell short and dropped back again. It had an oily and repulsive look, and the stench poured out of it. Another wave ran across its surface, struck the opposite wall of the vault and curled on itself, not as water would curl, but slowly, deliberately, ponderously, with a terrible look of power. Then it was flowing back and reaching up again, and this time it hit him. It climbed over his body, covering him, drenching him in its substance. He lifted his hands and clawed in terror to free his eyes of the clinging putridness. His stomach heaved and churned. He vomited weakly, but it was dry vomiting; there was nothing left to vomit.

  He could see only blearily, and he had the horrible feeling that he was lost in an otherness that was beyond the ken of all living things. He did not sense the pressure of the rope as the others hauled him up. It was not until he felt hands upon him, hauling him free of the opening of the vault, that he realized he had been lifted free.

  His feet hit hardness and his knees buckled under him. He sprawled weakly, still retching. Someone was wiping off his face. Someone was saying, “You’re all right now, Mark. We have
you out of it.”

  And someone else, off a ways, was saying, “It’s not dead, I tell you. It is still alive. No wonder those slimy little bastards were afraid to go down in there. We been took, I tell you. We been took.”

  He struggled to his knees. Someone threw a pail of water over him. He tried to speak, but the vomit-soaked, stench-drenched scarf still covered his mouth. Hands ripped it off him and his face was free.

  He saw Gib’s face in front of him. Gib’s mouth worked. “What a mess,” he said. “Off with those clothes. Down the stairs and in the tub. The water’s hot and we have soap.”

  29

  Coon and Oliver perched on the edge of the tub. “I say give it up,” said Oliver. “The castle people knew what would happen if they went into the vault. They know the thing’s not dead.…”

  “It’s dead, all right,” said Sniveley. “It’s rotting there before your eyes. It’s magic. That is what it is. The vault’s bewitched.…”

  “You can’t bewitch the vault,” protested Oliver. “You can’t bewitch a thing. A person, sure, a living thing, but not a thing of stone.”

  “We have to figure out another way,” said Gib. “I’ve been looking at that iron frying pan we have. We could use the handle of it, heat it, bend it in a hook …”

  “Go probing down with a hook,” said Hal, “and the same thing will happen. The Beast, dead or not, is not about to let us hook that object out of there.”

  “Any sign of Big Belly or Foxy or any of the rest of them?” asked Cornwall.

  “Not a sign,” said Hal. “We searched the castle. They’re in some hidey-hole.”

  “If we have to,” said Cornwall, “we’ll take the place down stone by stone to find them. No one can pull a trick like this on us.”

  “But we have to get that thing out of there,” said Mary. “We made a deal with the castle folk. The plain out there is swarming with Hellhounds. We’ll never get out by ourselves.”