At the sound of a soft rustling behind him, he leaped to his feet. It was Mary.
“I wondered where you were,” she said. “I came looking for you. I hope you don’t mind.”
“I’ve been saving a place for you,” he said. He reached out a hand to guide her to a seat against the boulder, then sat down beside her.
“What are you doing out here?” she asked.
“Thinking,” he said. “Wondering. I wonder if we were right to come, what we should do now. Go on, of course, and try to find the Old Ones. But after that, what? And what if we don’t find the Old Ones? Will we still go on, stumbling from adventure to adventure, simply going on for the sake of going, for the sake of new things found? A course like that could get us killed. We’ve been lucky so far.”
“We’ll be all right,” she said. “You’ve never felt this way before. We will find the Old Ones, and Gib will give them the ax, and everything will work out the way it should.”
“We’re a long way from home,” he said, “and maybe no way back. Or at least no easy way. For myself I don’t mind so much. I never had a home except the university, and that wasn’t really home. A university is never more than a stopping place. Although for Oliver, I suppose it might be. He lived up in the rafters of the library and had been there for years. But Gib had his marsh, and Hal and Coon had their hollow tree. Even Sniveley had his mine and metal-working shop. And you …”
“I had no home,” she said, “after my foster parents died. It makes no difference to me now where I am.”
“It was a thing of impulse,” he said, “a sort of harebrained plan that rose out of nothing. I had been interested in the Old Ones—perhaps no more than an academic interest, but somehow it seemed very real. I can’t tell you why. I don’t know where their attraction lies. I had studied their language, or what purported to be their language. No one, in fact, seemed sure there were such things as Old Ones. Then I ran across the manuscript in which an ancient traveler …”
“And you had to go and see,” said Mary. “I can’t see there’s so much wrong with that.”
“Nothing wrong with it if only myself were involved. If only the Hermit hadn’t died and left the ax in Gib’s keeping, if Gib had not saved me from the wolves, if Hal hadn’t been a woodsman and a friend of Gib’s, if Sniveley had not forged the magic sword—if these things hadn’t happened, none of this would be happening now.…”
“But it did happen,” said Mary, “and no matter about the rest of it, it brought the two of us together. You have no right to shoulder guilt because there is no guilt, and when you try to conjure it up and carry it, you’re doing nothing more than belittle the rest of us. There are none of us here against our will. There are none of us who have regrets.”
“Sniveley.”
“You mean his complaining. That is just his way. That’s the way he lives.” She laid her head against his shoulder. “Forget it, Mark,” she said. “We’ll go on and find the Old Ones, and it will be all right in the end. We may even find my parents or some trace of them.”
“There’s been no trace of them so far,” he said. “We should have asked at the castle, but there were so many other things that we never even asked. I blame myself for that. I should have thought to ask.”
“I did ask,” said Mary. “I asked that dirty little creature with the foxy face.”
“And?”
“They stopped at the castle. They stayed for several days to rest. There were Hellhounds all about, there always were Hellhounds hanging around the castle, but they didn’t bother them. Think of it, Mark, they walked in peace through the Blasted Plain, they walked in peace through packs of Hellhounds. They’re somewhere up ahead, and that is another reason for us to go on.”
“You hadn’t mentioned that you asked.”
“As you said, there were so many other things.”
“They walked in peace,” said Cornwall. “They must be wonderful. What is there about them—Mary, how well do you remember them?”
“Hardly at all,” she said. “Just beauty—beauty for my mother, beauty and comfort. Her face I can remember just a little. A glow with a face imprinted on it. My father, I can’t remember him. I love them, of course, but I can’t remember why I do. Just the beauty and the comfort, that is all.”
“And now you’re here,” said Cornwall. “A long march behind you, a long march ahead. Food almost gone and one garment to your name.”
“I’m where I want to be,” she said. She lifted her head, and he cupped her face in his two hands and kissed her tenderly.
“The horn of the unicorn worked,” he said. “Oliver, damn his hide, was right.”
“You thought of that?” she asked.
“Yes, I did think of that. You still have the horn. How about mislaying it or losing it or something?”
She settled down against him. “We’ll see,” she said in a happy voice.
34
They stumbled on the Old Ones when they were deep into the mountains. Climbing a sharp ridge that lay between two valleys, they came face to face with them as they reached the crest. Both parties stopped in astonishment and stood facing one another, not more than three hundred feet apart. The little band of Old Ones appeared to be a hunting party. They were short, squat men clothed in furs and carrying stone-tipped spears. Most of them wore grizzled beards, although there were a couple of striplings still innocent of whiskers. There were, altogether, not more than a dozen of them.
In the rear of the band two men shouldered a pole, on which was slung a carcass that appeared disturbingly human.
For a moment no one spoke, then Cornwall said, “Well, we have finally found them. I was beginning to doubt in the last few days that there were any Old Ones.”
“You are sure?” asked Hal. “How can you be sure? No one knows what the Old Ones are. That has worried me all along—what were we looking for?”
“There were hints in the accounts written by ancient travelers,” said Cornwall. “Never anything specific. No eyewitness accounts, you understand, just hearsay. Very secondhand. No solid evidence. Just horrific little hints that the Old Ones were, in some horrible way, humanoid. Humanoid, but overlaid with abundant myth content. Even the man, whoever he might have been, who wrote the Old Ones’ vocabulary and grammar had nothing to say of the Old Ones themselves. He may have, and that part of his manuscript may have been lost or stolen or for some reason suppressed by some fuddy-duddy churchman centuries ago. I suspected they might be human, but I couldn’t be sure. That ax Gib carries smells of human fashioning. Who other than a human could work stone so beautifully.”
“Now that we’ve found them,” said Sniveley, “what do we do about them? Does Gib just go rushing down and give the ax to them? If I were you, Gib, I would hesitate to do that. I don’t like the looks of the game they carry.”
“I’ll go down and talk to them,” said Cornwall. “Everyone stand fast. No sudden motions, please. We don’t want to frighten them away.”
“Somehow,” said Sniveley, “they don’t look nearly as frightened as I would like them to.”
“I’ll cover you,” said Hal. “If they act hostile, don’t try to be a hero.”
Cornwall unbuckled his sword belt and handed it and the sword to Mary.
“We’re dead right now,” wailed Sniveley. “They’ll gnaw our bones by nightfall.”
Cornwall lifted his hands, with the palms extended outward, and began pacing slowly down the slope.
“We come in peace,” he shouted in the language of the Old Ones, hoping as he spoke the words that his pronunciation was acceptable. “No fighting. No killing.”
They waited, watching closely as he moved toward them. The two who were carrying the carcass dropped it and moved up with the others.
They made no response to the words he spoke to them. They stood solid, not stirring. Any facial expressions were hidden behind the grizzled beards. They had as yet made no manacing gesture with the spears, but that, he knew, could co
me at any minute and there’d be nothing to forewarn him.
Six feet away from them he stopped and let his arms fall to his side.
“We look for you,” he said. “We bring a gift for you.”
They said nothing. There was no flicker of expression in their eyes. He wondered fleetingly if they understood a word he said.
“We are friends,” he said, and waited.
Finally one of them said, “How we know you friends? You may be demons. Demons take many shapes. We know demons. We are demon hunters.”
He gestured at the thing slung upon the pole. A couple of them stepped aside so Cornwall could see it better. It was of human form, but the skin was dark, almost blue. It had a long slender tail and stubby horns sprouted from its forehead. The feet were hoofed.
“We trapped him,” said the spokesman for the band. “We trap many. This one is small. Small and young and probably very foolish. But we trap the old as well.” He smacked his lips. “Good eating.”
“Eating?”
“Cook in fire. Eat.” He made a pantomime of putting something in his mouth and chewing. “You eat?”
“We eat,” said Cornwall. “But not demons. Not men, either.”
“Long ago eat men,” said the Old One. “Not now. Only demons. Men all gone. No more men to eat. Plenty demons. Old campfires tales tell of eating men. Not miss men as long as plenty demons. This one”—he gestured at the carcass tied to the pole—“be very tender eating. Not much to go around. Only one small piece for each. But very tender eating.” He grinned a gap-toothed grin at the thought of how tender it would be.
Cornwall sensed an easing of the tension. The Old One was talkative, and he took that to be a good sign. You don’t gossip with a man you are about to kill. He swiftly examined the other faces. There was no friendliness, but neither was there animosity.
“You sure you are not demons?” asked the Old One.
“We are sure,” said Cornwall. “I am a man like you. The others all are friends.”
“Demons tricky,” said the Old One. “Hate us. We trap so many of them. They do anything to hurt us. You say you have gift for us.”
“We have a gift.”
The Old One shrugged. “No gift to us. Gift to Old Man. That is the law.”
He shook his head. “You still could be demons. How are we to know? You would kill a demon?”
“Yes,” said Cornwall, “we would be glad to kill a demon.”
“Then you go with us.”
“Glad to go with you.”
“One more trap to see. You kill demon we find in it. Then we know you not demon. Demon not kill demon.”
“What if there is no demon in the trap?”
“There will be demon. We use good bait. No demon can pass by without being caught. This time very special bait. Sure to be a demon. We go. You kill the demon. Then we go home. Good eating. Eat and dance. Give gift to Old Man. Sit and talk. You tell us, we tell you. Good time had by all.”
“That sounds good to me,” said Cornwall.
All the other Old Ones were grinning at him, lifting their spears across their shoulders. The two who had been carrying the demon picked up the pole. The demon dangled, its tail dragging on the ground.
Cornwall turned and beckoned to those waiting on the hilltop. “It’s all right,” he shouted. “We are going with them.”
They came rapidly down the hill. The talkative spokesman for the Old Ones stayed with Cornwall, but the rest of the hunting party went angling up the slope, heading toward the north.
“What’s going on?” asked Hal.
“They’ve invited us to go along with them. They are trapping demons.”
“You mean that thing they’re carrying?” asked Oliver.
Cornwall nodded. “There’s one more trap to visit. They want us to kill the demon to prove we aren’t demons.”
“That wouldn’t prove a thing,” Sniveley pointed out. “Men kill men. Look at all the men who are killed by other men. Why shouldn’t demons kill demons?”
“Maybe,” said Oliver, “the Old Ones just aren’t thinking straight. Lots of people have strange ideas.”
“They think we are demons?” Mary asked. “How can that be—we have no tails or horns.”
“They say demons can change their shapes.” He said to the Old One, “My friends cannot speak your tongue. They are telling me they are happy we have met.”
“You tell them,” said the Old One, “we have big demon feast tonight.”
“I’ll tell them,” Cornwall promised.
Mary handed Cornwall his sword, but before he could strap it on, the Old One said, “We must hurry on. The others are ahead of us. If we aren’t there, they may be driven by excitement to kill the demon in the trap, and you must kill that demon.…”
“I know we must,” said Cornwall. He said to the others, “Let us get going. We can’t afford to linger.”
“When do I give them the ax?” asked Gib, trotting along beside Cornwall.
“Later on,” said Cornwall. “You have to give it to the Old Man of the tribe. Tribal law, I guess. There’ll be big doings. A big feast and a dance.”
“A feast of what?” asked Sniveley, eyeing the demon dangling from the pole. “If it’s the kind of feast I think it will be, I will not eat a bite. I’ll starve before I do it.”
The Old One was hurrying them along. “I hope there is a big, fat one,” he said. “The one we have is small and skinny. We need a big, fat one.”
They had crossed the ridge and were running down a steep ravine, with the hunting band a short distance ahead of them. The ravine made a sharp turn, and as the hunters went around the bend, a mighty shouting went up. They came around the bend and there, ahead of them, the hunters were leaping up and down, waving their spears and yelling.
“Wait!” screamed the Old One. “Wait! Don’t kill him. Wait for us.”
The hunters swung around at the shout and stopped their yelling. But someone else was shouting.
“Let me out of here, goddamnit! What do you think you’re doing? A gang of filthy savages!”
Cornwall broke through the milling hunters and skidded to a halt.
“That is no demon,” Gib said. “That is our old friend, Jones.”
“Jones,” yelled Cornwall, “what are you doing here? Whatever happened to you? How did you get in there?”
Jones stood in the center of a small clearing from which rose a great oak tree. Broad bands of shimmering light ran in a brilliant triangle between three metallic poles set in the ground in such a fashion as to enclose the clearing and the oak. Jones was standing near one of the shimmering bands, carrying in one hand a singular contraption made of wood and metal. A naked girl crouched against the oak tree. She didn’t seem too frightened.
“Thank God it’s you,” said Jones. “Where did you pop out from? You made it all the way, it seems, across the Blasted Plain. I never thought you would. I was on my way to hunt for you, but my bike broke down. Now, get me out of here.” He waved the strange contraption. “It would be a pity to be forced to mow all the beggars down.”
The Old One was jigging up and down. “You can talk with it,” he squealed. “You can talk with demons.”
“He is no demon,” Cornwall said. “He is the same as me. You must turn him loose.”
The Old One backed swiftly away. “Demons!” he shouted. “All of you are demons.”
Cornwall’s hand went to his sword hilt. “Stay where you are,” he shouted, drawing the sword with an awkward flourish. He flicked a glance toward the other Old Ones. Spears leveled, they were moving in, but very cautiously.
“Hold it!” Jones shouted and even as he shouted, there was a vicious chattering. Little puffs of dust and flying gouts of earth stitched a line in front of the advancing spearmen. The end of the stick-like contraption in his hands twinkled with an angry redness, and there was the bitter scent of something burning.
The line of spearmen came to a halt. They stood half-frozen, b
ut with the spears still leveled.
“Next time,” Jones said calmly, “I’ll hold it a little higher. I’ll blast out your guts.”
The Old One who had backed away had stopped in his tracks. Staring in fascination at the sword held in Cornwall’s hand, he sank slowly to his knees.
“Throw down the spears,” yelled Cornwall. The line of spearmen dropped their weapons.
“Watch them, Hal,” said Cornwall. “If they make a move …”
“The rest of you get over to one side,” said Hal. “Jones has some sort of weapon, and he needs a clear field for it.”
The Old One who had fallen to his knees now was groveling on the ground and moaning. Cornwall, sword still in hand, walked forward and jerked him to his feet. The man shrank back and Cornwall hauled him closer.
“What is your name?” asked Cornwall.
The Old One tried to speak, but his teeth were chattering and no words would come.
“Come on, speak up,” said Cornwall. “Tell me your name.”
The Old One broke into speech. “The shining blade,” he wailed. “The shining blade. There are tales of the shining blade.”