Enchanted Pilgrimage

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 gri

"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.

He touched the empty socket with his forefinger and with it traced the scar. The hand had three fingers missing; there was only the forefinger and the thumb.

He fixed Cornwall with his one remaining, glittering eye.

"Hand to hand," he said. "Me and him. An old boar bear almost as mean as I was. And I was the one who walked away. Not the bear. He tore me up, but I was the one who walked away. We ate him. We dragged him home and cooked him, and he was the toughest meat I ever knew. Tough to eat, hard to chew. But his was the sweetest flesh I have ever eaten."

He cackled at his joke. Most of his teeth were gone.

"I couldn't eat him now," he said. He pointed at his still open mouth. "The teeth fell out. Do you know why teeth fall out?"

"No, I don't," said Cornwall.

"I'm no good no more," said the Old Man. "I'm stiff in the legs. I have only one good hand. One eye is gone. But these fellows here," he said, gesturing at the group of Old Ones who squatted behind and to either side of him, "these fellows, they don't dare to tackle me. They know I am mean and tricky. I was always mean and tricky. Wouldn't have lived this long if I hadn't been mean and tricky. I hear you are a god and carry a shining blade."

"I carry a shining blade," said Cornwall, "but I never claimed to be a god. It was Broken Bear—"

The Old Man made a disrespectful noise. "Broken Bear is full of wind," he said. He jerked out his elbow and caught Broken Bear squarely in the ribs. "Aren't you, Broken Bear?" he asked.

"No more than you, broken man/ said Broken Bear. "You have more wind than any of us. It all comes through your mouth."

"He would like to take my place," said the Old Man. "But he won't. One hand on that big neck of his and I would strangle him. The good hand, not the bad hand. I'd take care to grab him with the good hand." He guffawed toothlessly.

"You talk a good fight," said Broken Bear, "but someone has to help you up. You can't get to your feet alone."

"I wouldn't have to get to my feet to strangle you," said the Old Man. "I could do it sitting down."

"What's all this jabbering about?" asked Jones.

"He's bragging about how beat up he is," said Cornwall.

Out beyond the comer where they sat, three great fires had been built on the ledge that extended out from the rock shelter. Grills of green wood had been set up over the fires, and on them meat was cooking. There was a great scurrying about, women bustling with the importance of the moment, racing children romping about and getting underfoot, packs of dogs circulating haphazardly, with a wary eye kept out for a flailing foot, but at the same time maintaining a close watch on the carcasses on the grills.

Coon, crouched between Hal and Mary, peeked out to have a quick look at the dogs. Mary hauled him back. "You stay put," she said. "I know you licked a half dozen of them, but now you are outmatched."

Hal gri

"Nevertheless," said Mary, "he stays here. He hasn't anything to prove. He handled those that jumped him and that's enough for one day."

Gib nodded at the Old Man. "When do I give him the ax?" he asked.

"Give him time," said Jones. "He's probably building up to it. Broken Bear would have told him there was a gift, so he must know. But there's tribal protocol in a thing like this—very solemn protocol. He can't appear too anxious. He must be very urbane. He must uphold his dignity."

The Old Man was saying, "You have traveled far. You come from unknown lands. You crossed the Blasted Plain. You outran the Hellhounds. But how did you get past the Castle of the Chaos Beast?"

"We did not outrun the Hellhounds," Cornwall told him. "The

Hellhounds ran from us. We stopped at the castle and the castle now is a heap of ruins. The Chaos Beast is dead."

The Old Man raised his hand to his mouth to express amazement. 'Truly," he said, "you indeed are gods. And this one who travels with you who is not honest flesh and that travels on three legs, as would no honest man…"

"He is magic," Cornwall said, "as is my shining blade."

"And the horn the female carries? It is magic, too? It comes from a unicorn."

"You know of unicorns? There are still unicorns about?"

"In the Place of Knowing. There are unicorns in the Place of Knowing." He made a gesture out into the darkness. "Beyond the gorge," he said. "No man travels there. It is guarded by Those Who Brood Upon the Mountain."

Cornwall turned to Jones. "He is telling me about the Place of Knowing. He must mean the university. He talks about a gorge and says that it is guarded by Those Who Brood Upon the Mountain. Not, you will note, He Who Broods Upon the Mountain."

Jones nodded. "Undoubtedly he has it right. He should know. A bit of bad translation on the part of someone. That is all it is. And there is a gorge. It is the very gorge we traveled to reach this place. I know. I traveled it."

"Seeing none of Those Who Brood Upon the Mountain?"

"Not a one," said Jones. "But I traveled on a bike and, as you may recall, it makes hell's own amount of noise. Maybe I scared them off. Maybe they like to know what they are guarding against. Too, I was traveling the wrong way. I was traveling from the university, not toward it. There's something I want to talk with you about. This robot of yours…"

"What is a robot?"

"The metal man who's traveling with you."

"Later," Cornwall said. "I will tell you later."

He turned back to the Old Man. "About this Place of Knowing. Could we travel there?"

"It would be death to try it."

"But there must have been others who traveled there. Just a few seasons ago. A man and woman…"

"But they were different," said the Old Man.

"How different?"

"They went in peace. They traveled hand in hand. They had no weapons, and there was only goodness in them."

"They stopped here. You saw them?"

"They stayed with us for a time. They could not talk with us. They did not need to talk. We knew the goodness in them."

"You tried to warn them?"

"We did not need to warn them. There was no need of warning. They could walk in safety anywhere they wished. There is nothing that could touch them."

Cornwall spoke softly to Mary, "He says your parents were here. Then went on to the university. He says it was safe for them. He says there was nothing that could hurt them."