Enchanted Pilgrimage (25 page)

“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, but 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.”

He stared in fearful fascination at the glittering sword.

“All right,” said Cornwall. “So it is a shining blade. Now tell me your name. I think the two of us should know one another's names.”

“Broken Bear,” the Old One said.

“Broken Bear,” said Cornwall. “I am Cornwall. It is a strange name, Cornwall. It is a magic name. Now say it.”

“Cornwall,” said Broken Bear.

“Let me out of here,” bawled Jones. “Won't someone let me out?”

Bucket walked toward the shining fence. He snapped out a tentacle and seized one of the poles. Sparks flared all about him, and the shining bands wavered, crackling and popping. With a heave Bucket uprooted the pole and flung it to one side. The shining bands were no longer there.

“And so,” said Sniveley, “there is the end to all this foolishness. Why don't you, Mark, give that old friend of yours a swift kick in the pants?”

“There is nothing I'd like better,” Cornwall said, “but it would be wiser not to do it. We want them to be friends.”

“Some friends they turned out to be,” said Sniveley.

Jones came striding toward Cornwall, the weapon held carelessly in the crook of one arm. He held out his hand, and Cornwall grasped it.

“What was that all about?” asked Jones, gesturing toward “Broken Bear. “I couldn't understand a word of it.”

“I spoke the language of the Old Ones.”

“So these are the Old Ones that you talked about. Hell, they're nothing but a bunch of Neanderthals. Although I must admit they are very skillful trappers. They use the proper kind of bait. There was this girl, not so bad to look at, although not ravishing, but naked as a jaybird, tied to the tree and doing a moderate amount of screeching because there were wolves about—”

“Neander-whats?”

“Neanderthals. A very primitive kind of men. In my world there aren't any of them. Died out thirty thousand years ago or more.…”

“But you said that our two worlds split much more recently than that, or at least you implied it.”

“Christ, I don't know,” said Jones. “I don't know anything anymore. Once I thought I did, but now it seems I know less and less and can't be certain of anything at all.”

“You said you were coming to meet us. How did you know where to look for us and what happened to you? We went up to your camp and it was apparent you had left.”

“Well, you talked about the Old Ones, and I got the impression you were hell-bent to find them, and I knew you'd have to cross the Blasted Plain to reach them. You see, I tried to steal a march on you. You said something about a university, something, I gather, that that funny little gnome of yours had told you.”

“So you went hunting for the university?”

“Yes, I did. And found it. Wait until I tell you—”

“But if you found it—”

“Cornwall, be reasonable. It's all there, all the records, all the books. But in several funny kinds of script. I couldn't read a line of it.”

“And you thought perhaps we could.”

“Look, Cornwall, let's play ball. What difference does it make? Our two worlds are separated. We belong to different places. But we can still be reasonable. You do something for me, I do something for you. That's what makes the world go round.”

“I think,” said Hal, “we'd better get this expedition moving. The natives are getting jittery.”

“They still aren't convinced we aren't demons,” Cornwall said. “We'll have to gag down some demon meat to prove it to them. Once they get a fool idea planted in their minds …”

He turned to Broken Bear. “Now we go home,” he said. “We all are friends. We eat and dance. We will talk the sun up. We will be like brothers.”

Broken Bear whimpered, “The shining blade! The shining blade!”

“Oh, Christ,” said Cornwall, “he has the shining blade on the brain. Some old ancient myth told and retold for centuries around the campfire. So all right, I'll put it away.”

He sheathed the sword.

He said to Broken Bear. “Let us get started. Pick up the bait you used. All of us are hungry.”

“It is lucky,” said Broken Bear, “we have something else than demon or it would be a starving feast. But we have at home a bear, a deer, a moose. There will be plenty. We can wallow in it.”

Cornwall flung an arm about his shoulder. “Fine for you,” he said. “We shall grease our faces. We shall eat until we can eat no more. We shall do it all with you.”

Broken Bear grinned his snaggle-toothed grin. “You no demons,” he said. “You are gods of shining blade. The fires burn high tonight and everyone is happy. For the gods come visiting.”

“Did you say something about a feast?” asked Jones. “Look, coming down the hill. The son of a bitch can smell out good eating a million miles away.”

It was the Gossiper, his rags fluttering in the wind, his staff stumping sturdily as he strode along. The raven perched on his shoulder, squalling obscenities and looking even more moth-eaten, Cornwall thought, than he had seen it.

Behind the Gossiper, the little white dog with spectacles limped along.

35

The Old Man was not in good shape. He had only one eye and a scar ran down from where the missing eye had been, slantwise across the cheek to the base of the neck.