Enchanted Pilgrimage

"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 Hell- hounds 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 find 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, well 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.