Enchanted Pilgrimage

"Nor could I," she said. "I wanted you so badly. I didn't know it until then, but then I did. There is a buried slut in every woman. It takes the touch of the right man's hand to bring it out."

"It won't last forever," he said. "There'll be a time when the unicorn magic will not be needed. We can wait till then."

She nestled close. "If the time should come when we can't," she said, "when either one or the other of us can't, we'll forget about the magic."

The fire flared as a stick of wood burned through and slumped into the coals. In the east the sky brightened as a signal to the rising moon. Stars pricked out in the heavens.

Feet scuffed behind them, and then she rose. She said, "I'll get you another plate of food. There is plenty left."

26

On the afternoon of the fourth day they came in sight of the Castle of the Chaos Beast. They first saw it after climbing a steep, high ridge, which broke sharply down into a deeply eroded valley-eroded at a time when there had been water in the land, the naked soil exposed and crumbling, the sun highlighting the many-colored strata, red and pink and yellow.

The castle had a mangy look about it. At one time it must have been an imposing pile, but now it was half in ruins. Turrets had fallen, with heaps of broken masonry piled against the walls. Great cracks zigzagged down the walls themselves. Small trees grew here and there along the battlements.

They stopped atop the ridge and looked at it across the deep and scarred ravine.

"So fearsome a name," said Sniveley, "and what a wreck it is."

"But still a threat," said Oliver. "It still could pose great danger."

"There is no sign of life about," said Gib. "It well could be deserted. I'm coming to believe that nothing lives in this land. Four days and we haven't seen a thing except a jackrabbit now and then and, less often, a gopher."

"Maybe we should try to go around it," suggested Mary. "Double back and…"

"If there is anyone around," said Hal, "they would know we're here."

Mary appealed to Cornwall, "What do you think, Mark?"

"Hal is right," he said, "and there seems to be some sort of path across the ravine. Perhaps the only place it can be crossed for miles. Gib may be right, as well. The place may be deserted."

"But everyone back where we came from talked about the Chaos Beast," she said. "As if he still were here."

"Legend dies hard," Sniveley told her. "Once told, a story lingers on. And I would think few cross this land. There would be no recent word."

Hal started down the path into the ravine, leading one of the horses. The others followed, going slowly; the path was steep and treacherous.

Cornwall, following behind Hal, looked up at Coon, who maintained a precarious perch atop the waterbags carried by the horse being led by Hal. Coon grimaced at him and dug his claws in deeper as the horse lurched on uncertain ground, then recovered and went on.

Coon looked somewhat bedraggled, no longer the perky animal he once had been. But so do all the rest of us, thought Cornwall. The days and miles had taken their toll. It had been a hard march, and no one knew when the end would be in sight, for the geography of the Wasteland was guesswork at the best. It was told in landmarks, and the landmarks were often ill-defined and at times not even there. First the Witch House, he thought, counting off the major landmarks, then the Blasted Plain, and now, finally, the Castle of the Chaos Beast and after this, the Misty Mountains, whatever they might be. He remembered he had been told there would be He Who

Broods Upon the Mountain, wondering rather idly if one of the Misty Mountains could be the one he brooded on.

But once the Misty Mountains had been reached, the Old Ones could not be far—or so they had been told by Jones, and, once again, what Jones had told would be no more than hearsay gained from his little people. There were no hard facts here, thought Cornwall, no real information. You pointed yourself in a certain direction and you stumbled on, hoping that in time you might find what you were looking for.

They had reached the bottom of the ravine and now started on the upward slope, the horses lunging upward, fearful of the crumbling and uncertain path, scrambling to maintain their footing.

Cornwall did not look up the slope to measure their progress. He kept his eyes on the path, alert to keeping out of the way of the lunging horse behind him. So that the end of it came suddenly and more quickly than he had expected. The path came to an end, and there was level ground beneath his feet.

He straightened from his stooped position and looked across the plain. And the plain, he saw, was no longer empty, as they first had seen it. It was black with Hellhounds.

They were still some distance off, but they were advancing at a steady lope, and in front of the pack ran the sloppy giant he had bellowed back and forth with at the Witch House.

The giant ran slab-sidedly, with his pancake feet plopping on the ground, raising little spurts of dust, but he still was making time, keeping well ahead of the beasts that ran behind him.

Hal stood to one side, with an arrow nocked against the bowstring. There was no excitement in him. He stood straight and steady, waiting, as if what was happening were no more than a target match.

And he knows, thought Cornwall, with a flare of panic, he knows as well as I do that we can't withstand this charge, that it is the end for us, that the shock of the charging Hellhounds will knock us back into the ravine where, separately, we'll be hunted down.

Where had the Hellhounds come from? he wondered. There had been no sign of them before. Was it possible they were the denizens of the castle and had hidden there?

His hand went back to the hilt of the sword, and with a jerk he wrenched the blade free of the scabbard. He was somewhat surprised that he should notice, with a thrill of pride, how brilliantly the naked blade flashed and glittered in the sunlight. And, somehow, the flash of it triggered in him an action, a heroic posturing of which he would have believed himself quite incapable. Stepping quickly forward, having no idea whatsoever that he had intended to step forward, he lifted the sword and swung it vigorously above his head so that it seemed a wheel of fire. And as he swung it, there came forth from his throat a battle bellow, a strident challenge—no words at all, but simply a roaring sound such as an angry bull might make to warn an intruder in a pasture.

He swung the sword in a glittering arc, then swung it once again, still roaring out the battle song, and on the second swing the hilt slipped from his hand and he stood there, suddenly weak-kneed and foolish, defenseless and unarmed.

Sweet Jesus, he thought, I have done it now. I should never have left Wyalusing. I should not be here. What will the others think of me, an oaf who can't even hang onto a sword.

He gathered himself for a mighty leap to retrieve the blade, praying that it would not fall so far away he could not get it back.

But the sword, he saw, was not falling. It was still spi

"I told you," Sniveley said, at his elbow, "that the blade had magic. But I did not dream this much. Perhaps it is the swordsman. You handle it expertly, indeed."