Enchanted Pilgrimage (6 page)

“Far,” said Cornwall. “I came from the west.”

“Wild country out there,” said Drood.

“Yes, it is wild country.”

“And you were going back there?”

“I suppose you could say I was.”

“You are a tight-lipped creature,” Drood told him. “You don't say much of nothing.”

“Maybe that's because I haven't much to say.”

“That's all right,” said Drood. “I didn't mean to pry. You take your rest now. Gib will be coming back almost any time.”

He rose and turned to walk away. “A minute, Mr. Drood,” said Cornwall. “Before you go—thanks for everything.”

Drood nodded at him, his eyes crinkling in a smile. “It's all right, young fellow. Make yourself to home.”

The sun, climbing up the sky, was warm upon him and Cornwall closed his eyes. He had no more than closed them when the picture came—the sudden surge of men out of the woods, the chunk of arrows, the shadowed flash of blades. It had been quietly done—there had been no screaming and no bellowing except by the men who had been hit, and not too many of them, for the most of them had died quickly, with arrows through their hearts.

How had it come, he wondered, that he had lived through it? He could remember little—a sword coming down on his head and instinctively throwing up his arms to ward it off, then falling. He could remember falling from the horse he rode, but he had no memory of falling to the ground—just falling, but not striking. Perhaps, he thought, he may have fallen into a heavy patch of undergrowth, for underbrush grew thick and close beside the trail—falling there and being considered dead, not being noticed later.

He heard a grating sound and opened his eyes. Another boat had drifted in against the raft. In it sat a young marshman and before him, in the middle of the craft, a basket full of clams.

Cornwall sat up. “You must be Gib,” he said.

“That's right,” said Gib. “I'm glad to see you looking well.”

“My name is Mark Cornwall. They tell me you are the one who saved my life.”

“I am glad I could. I got there just in time. You were fighting off a wolf with your bare hands. That took a lot of guts, to do a thing like that. Do you remember any of it?”

“It is all pretty vague,” said Cornwall. “Just snatches here and there.”

Gib got out of the boat, lifted the basket of clams onto the raft. “A lot of chowder there,” he said. “You like chowder?”

“Indeed, I do.”

“Mrs. Drood makes it like you never tasted.”

He came over and stood beside Cornwall. “Drood and I went out this morning. We found seven bodies. The bodies had been stripped of everything of value. Not a knife, not a purse. All the goods were gone. Even the saddles from the horses. It was the work of bandits.”

“I am not so sure,” said Cornwall.

“What do you mean, you're not so sure?”

“Look,” said Cornwall, “you saved my life. I owe you something. All I can give you is the truth. Drood was asking questions, but I told him nothing.”

“You can trust Drood,” said Gib. “He's all right. You can trust any marsh-man. And you don't need to tell me. I don't need to know.”

“I somehow feel I should,” said Cornwall. “I am not a trader. I am, or rather I was, a student at the University of Wyalusing. I stole a document from the university library, and I was warned by a friendly goblin to flee because others might want the document. So I hunted up a trader and paid him to let me travel with him.”

“You think someone attacked the trader's party to get rid of you? Or to get the document? They killed everyone to get rid of you? Did they get the document?”

“I don't think so,” said Cornwall. “Pull off my boot, will you? The right boot. With only one hand I can't manage it.”

Gib stooped and tugged off the boot.

“Reach into it,” said Cornwall.

Gib reached in. “There's something here,” he said. He pulled it out.

“That's it,” said Cornwall. He awkwardly unfolded the single page and showed it to Gib.

“I can't read,” said Gib. “There is no marsh-man who can.”

“It's Latin, anyway,” said Cornwall.

“What I can't understand,” said Gib, “is why it should be there. They would have searched you for it.”

“No,” said Cornwall. “No, they wouldn't have searched me. They think they have the document. I left a copy, hidden, where it was easy for them to find.”

“But if you left a copy …”

“I changed the copy. Not much. Just a few rather vital points. If I'd changed too much, they might have been suspicious. Someone might have known, or guessed, something of what it is about. I don't think so, but it is possible. It wasn't the document they were after; it was me. Someone wanted me dead.”

“You're trusting me,” said Gib. “You shouldn't be trusting me. There was no call to tell me.”

“But there is,” said Cornwall. “If it hadn't been for you, I'd now be dead. There might be danger to you keeping me. If you want to, help me get ashore and I will disappear. If someone asks, say you never saw me. It's only fair to you that you know there might be danger.”

“No,” said Gib.

“No what?”

“No, we won't put you ashore. No one knows that you are here. No one saw and I have told no one. Anyway, they'll think that you are dead.”

“I suppose they will.”

“So you stay here until you are well. Then you can go wherever you wish, do what you wish.”

“I can't wait for long. I have a long journey I must make.”

“So have I,” said Gib.

“You as well? I thought you people never left the marsh. Drood was telling me …”

“Ordinarily that is so. But there was an old hermit up in the hills. Before he died, he gave me a book and what he called a hand ax. He asked me to deliver them to someone called the Bishop of the Tower …”

“North and west from here?”

“That's what the hermit said. Up the river, north and west. You know of this Bishop of the Tower?”

“I have heard of him. On the border of the Wasteland.”

“The Wasteland? I did not know. The enchantment world?”

“That's right,” said Cornwall. “That's where I am going.”

“We could travel together, then?”

Cornwall nodded. “As far as the Tower. I go beyond the Tower.”

“You know the way?” asked Gib.

“To the Tower? No, just the general direction. There are maps, but not too reliable.”

“I have a friend,” said Gib. “Hal of the Hollow Tree. He has traveled widely. He might know. He might go with us to point out the way.”

“Consider this,” said Cornwall, “before you decide we should go together: Already there has been one attempt to kill me; there might be others.”

“But whoever is concerned already thinks you dead.”

“Yes, of course, at the moment that is true. But there would be many eyes along the way and many tongues. Travelers would be noticed and would be talked about.”

“If Hal went with us, we'd travel no roads or trails. We'd travel in the forest. There would be few to see us.”

“You sound as if you want to travel with me, even knowing …”

“We of the marshes are timid folk,” said Gib. “We feel unsafe when we go far from the marsh. I don't mind telling you I shrink from the idea of the journey. But with you and Hal along.…”

“You are good friends with Hal?”

“The best friend that I have. We visit back and forth. He is young, about as old as I am, and stronger, and he knows the woods. He knows no fear. He steals from cornfields, he raids garden patches …”

“He sounds a good man to be with.”

“He is all of that,” said Gib.

“You think he'd go with us?”

“I think he would. He is not one to turn his back on adventure.”

10

Sniveley, the gnome, said, “So you want to buy the sword? What do you want the sword for? It is not for such as you. You could scarcely lift it. It is fashioned for a human. No pretty piece of iron, but a sword for a fighting man.”

“I have known you for a long time,” said Gib. “You have known my people for a long time. And the People of the Hills. Can I speak in confidence?”

Sniveley twitched his ears and scratched the back of his head. “You should know better than to ask me that. We are not blabbermouths, we gnomes. We are a business people and we are not gossips. We hear many things and we do not pass them on. Loose mouths can be a fertile source of trouble and we want no trouble. You know full well that we of the Brotherhood—the goblins and the elves and all the rest of us—live in the land of humans on their sufferance. It is only by sticking to our business and staying strictly out of matters that are no affair of ours that we can survive at all. The Inquisition forever sniffs around, but it seldom acts against us if we remain somewhat invisible. But let us become ever so faintly obnoxious and some pesty human will go rushing off to inform on us, and then there is hell to pay. Perhaps I should be the one to ask if this confidential matter that you mention might be the cause of trouble to us.”

“I don't think so,” Gib told him. “If I had thought so, I would not have come. We marsh people need you and through the years you have dealt fairly with us. You have heard, of course, of the massacre of the pack train just two nights ago.”

Sniveley nodded. “A ghastly business. Your people buried them?”

“We buried what was left of them. We leveled and disguised the graves. We towed the dead animals far out into the marsh. We left no sign of what had happened.”

Sniveley nodded. “That is good,” he said. “The train will be missed, of course, and the authorities, such as they are, may make some investigation. Not too much of an investigation, I would think, for this is still border country and officialdom does not rest quite easy here. If there had been blatant evidence, they would have had to investigate, and that would have been bad. We, none of us—humans or you or the People of the Hill or the Brotherhood—have any desire for human bloodhounds to be snooping in our yards.”

“I feel bad,” said Gib, “about one aspect of it. We could not say the proper words above their graves. We do not know the words. Even if we did, we'd not be the proper persons to recite them. We buried them unshrived.”

“They died unshrived,” said Sniveley, “and it's all foolishness, in any case.”

“Foolishness, perhaps,” said Gib, “but no more foolishness, perhaps, than many of our ways.”

“Which brings us,” said Sniveley, “to how all of this is connected with your wanting the sword.”

“Not all of them were killed,” said Gib. “I stumbled on the massacre and found one who was still alive. It's he who needs the sword.”

“He had a sword before and it was looted from him?”

“His sword, his knife, his purse. The killers took the goods the train was carrying and also stripped the bodies. I gather that the sword he had was not a very good one. One his great-grandfather had passed down. And now he needs a good one.”

“I have other swords,” said Sniveley.

Gib shook his head. “He needs the best. He is going to the Wasteland to hunt out the Old Ones.”

“That is insanity,” said Sniveley. “There may be no Old Ones left. We gnomes have heard ancient tales of them, but that is all they are—old tales. Even if he found them, what would be the use of it?”

“He wants to talk with them. He is a scholar and he wants—”

“No one can talk with them,” said Sniveley. “No one knows their language.”

“Many years ago—perhaps thousands of years ago—a human lived with them for a time and he wrote down their language, or at least some words of their language.”

“Another tale,” said Sniveley. “The Old Ones, if they came across a human, would tear him limb from limb.”

“I do not know,” said Gib. “All of this is what Mark told me.”

“Mark? He is your human?”

“Mark Cornwall. He comes from the west. He has spent the last six years at the University of Wyalusing. He stole a manuscript …”

“So now he is a thief.”

“Not so much thief as finder. The manuscript had been hidden away for centuries. No one knew of it. It would have continued lost if he'd not happened on it.”

“One things occurs to me,” said Sniveley. “You showed me the book and ax that the dying hermit gave you. To be delivered, I believe, to some bishop. Is it possible you and this Mark will make a common journey?”

“That is our intention,” said Gib. “We go together to the Bishop of the Tower. Then he will go into the Wasteland.”

“And you have thoughts of going with him?”

“I had thought of it. But Mark will not allow it.”

“I should hope not,” said Sniveley. “Do you know what the Wasteland is?”

“It's enchanted ground,” said Gib.

“It is,” said Sniveley, “the last stronghold of the Brotherhood.…”

“But you—”

“Yes, we are of the Brotherhood. We get along all right because this is the Borderland. There are humans, certainly, but individual humans—millers, woodcutters, charcoal burners, small farmers, moonshiners. The human institutions, government and church, do not impinge on us. You have never seen the lands to the south and east?”

Gib shook his head.

“There,” said Sniveley, “you would find few of us. Some in hiding, perhaps, but not living openly as we do. Those who once lived there have been driven out. They have retreated to the Wasteland. As you may suspect, they hold a hatred for all humankind. In the Wasteland are those who have been driven back to it and those who never left, the ones who had stayed there and hung on grimly to the olden ways of life.”

“But you left.”

“Centuries ago,” said Sniveley, “a group of prospecting gnomes found the ore deposit that underlies these hills. For uncounted millennia the gnomes have been smiths and miners. So we moved here, this small group of us. We have no complaint. But if the so-called human civilization ever moved in full force into the Borderland, we would be driven out.”