Elder Isles 2: The Green Pearl (48 page)

“I must stop thinking such things!” she told herself resolutely. “Aillas will help me as soon as he finds that I am lost, and Shimrod as well, and of course my dear Dhrun… . The sooner the better, for this is a dreadful place!”

Spherical trees with foliage of red and blue and blue-black lined the banks. On several occasions Glyneth saw beasts at the river’s edge: a white bull with the head of an insect and spikes along his back; a spindly stilt-man fifteen feet tall with a narrow neck and a sharp face adapted to looking into foliage for nuts and fruit.

Glyneth explored the contents of the wallet. She found a book bound in leather entitled Twitten’s Almanac, evidently newly copied from an older work. She found a small bottle of wine and a little box containing a hunch of bread and a slab of cheese. Those were Visbhume’s rations, and Glyneth surmised that both bottle and case were magically refilled after use. She noticed other articles whose utility was not so clear, including a half-dozen small glass bulbs swarming inside with insects.

Glyneth, in the absence of Visbhume, began to feel less desperate. Sooner or later her friends would find her, and bring her home; of this she felt sure… . Why should Visbhume so insistently inquire upon the circumstances of Dhrun’s birth? He could only be acting in the interests of King Casmir, and hence disclosure of the knowledge most probably would not be to the advantage of Dhrun.

The boat drifted into marshy shallows. Glyneth reached into the water and secured a floating branch, which she used to pole herself to the shore. She climbed the bank and searched upriver, but discovered no sign of Visbhume. She turned to look downriver and discovered a line of stony crags descending from a high ridge, at last to thrust into the water. Glyneth eyed these crags with distrust, speculating that they might be the haunt of ferocious beasts. The boat and the squat person in the wide brown hat, digging in the mud, indicated the existence of a human population… but where? And what sort of human beings?

Glyneth stood on the shore, dubiously considering the landscape: a woeful figure in a pretty blue frock. Conceivably all the best magic of Shimrod might not be able to find her, and she would spend all the days of her life under the green and yellow suns of Tanjecterly… unless Visbhume came upon her and hypnotized her with his silver pipe.

She blinked away her tears. As her first urgency she must find a refuge secure from Visbhume.

The crags which came down to the river intrigued her. If she climbed to the near ridge she could overlook a great sweep of country and perhaps discover a human settlement. The idea was not without its dreary possibilities! Strangers were not everywhere accorded kind hospitality, not even among the lands of Earth.

So Glyneth hesitated and wondered how best to survive. The boat offered a measure of security and she was reluctant to leave it behind.

Her indecision was suddenly vacated. From the water rose a sinewy member, as wide as her own waist, ending with a wedge-shaped head, a single green eye and a great fanged mouth. The eye fixed upon her; the mouth gaped wide, showing a dark red interior; the head lunged forward, but Glyneth had already jumped back.

The head and neck slowly subsided into the river. Shuddering, Glyneth backed away from the boat, which no longer seemed a source of security… . Well, then: up to the ridge.

She broke away twigs from her branch, so that it might be used as a club, or a staff, or a makeshift lance. Throwing the strap to Visbhume’s wallet over her shoulder, she set out as bravely as possible downstream along the riverbank toward the crags.

Without incident she arrived at the base of the crags and climbed the first rise of ground. Here she paused to catch her breath and, looking back the way she had come, with dismay thought to see a far bounding black form: almost certainly Visbhume.

The rocks were close at hand, where she could possibly find a hiding place. She climbed up a slope among hummocks of curiously convoluted stones. … As she passed among them, they abruptly uncoiled and jerked erect.

Glyneth gasped in terror; she was surrounded by tall thin creatures gray as stone, with tall pointed heads. Eyes like disks of black glass and long leathery nasal flaps produced an effect of droll dejection, by no means reassuring, especially when one of the group dropped a cord over Glyneth’s neck and led her away at a scuttling trot along a trail through the rocks.

Ten minutes later the group came out upon a flat area with crags rising steep at the back. The goblin-eels thrust Glyneth into a pen also occupied by a rotund six-legged creature with a dull pink body surmounted by an object like an enormous orange polyp, fringed by a hundred eyes growing on stalks. The eyes veered around to peer at Glyneth, who was now in a state beyond terror, with her emotions anaesthetized. … Unreal. She closed her eyes and opened them again. Nothing had changed.

The walls of the pen were woven of branches, in a rude and untidy style. Glyneth stealthily tested the tightness of the weave and decided that without too much effort she could open a hole large enough to permit her passage. She watched the goblin-eels for a moment, wondering what might be the best time to attempt an escape. At the moment the group stood assembled around a pit in the stone, with an opening about four feet in diameter, from which exuded wisps of vapor, or steam.

Several of the goblin-eels stirred the substance in the pit with longhandled paddles. Occasionally one or another touched the stuff on the paddles and tasted it with the nice judgment of connoisseurs. Conversing in whispers, they arrived at a consensus. Several entered the pen and deftly chopped two legs from the pink beast. Ignoring its squeals of pain as it hobbled to the side of the pen the goblin-eels dropped the legs into the pit. Others tossed a bale of vegetation into the steaming vent. A black shrimplike creature, which roared and bellowed and strove mightily against its bonds, was also dragged to the opening and thrown in. Its cries reached a crescendo of roaring, then subsided into plaintive gurgling, dwindled and went silent.

Eyes doleful and droll were now turned toward Glyneth, and tears at last coursed down her cheeks. “How dreadful and dreary that I must die in this vile pit, when I do not want to do so, not in the least!”

A shrill wild sound came from the trail: the fluting and warbling of Visbhume’s silver whistle. The goblin-eels became still, then turned and gave signals of perturbation.

Visbhume appeared, marching smartly to the meter of his music, with an occasional caper of sheer extravagance, when he struck some phrase he considered particularly felicitous.

The goblin-eels began shaking and jerking, as if impelled despite all inclination, and began to hop up and down, in place, while Visbhume played fiery jigs and fare-thee-wells. At last he halted, and cried out in a reedy voice a language Glyneth knew to be that of the goblin-eels: “Who is master here, lord of the irresistible tap-tap-a-tapping?”

All whispered: “It is you, it is you! The Progressive Eels are your minions! Put down your fearful weapon; must we hop and jump to exhaustion?”

“I will show you my mercy, but first, one last little quickstep, for your health’s sake, and so that you remember me the better!”

“Spare us!” cried those who had termed themselves the Progressive Eels. “Come; taste the good slime of our pit!” And: “Put away your magic; eat slime!”

Glyneth had been thrusting at the weave of the pen; she created a hole and squeezed through. “Now! Away, be away! Run, run, run!”

Visbhume pointed: “I will desist, and I will take away with me that creature who even now thinks to escape the pen. Seize her, and bring her to me.”

The Progressive Eels leapt to surround Glyneth, and one seized her hair. A heavy stone, larger than a pair of clenched fists, hissed down to strike the Progressive Eel’s face and crush it to instant pulp.

Stones rattled down the mountainside; Glyneth jerked around in a state close to hysteria; she was not soothed by the silhouette of what appeared to be a monstrous half-human beast, black against the lavender sky. The creature stood a moment, appraising the scene below, then lunged down the rocks with what seemed a total contempt for gravity: bounding, running, sliding, and at last leaping into the midst of the Progressive Eels. It snatched a sword from the scabbard at its leather belt, and with furious zeal set about hacking and chopping. Glyneth shrank back, appalled by the frightful sounds which rose from the combat. Heads with eyes wide in blank surprise rolled along the ground; torsos half-severed fell down, to crawl about with foolish kicks, usually to tumble into the pit.

Hissing and sighing, the Progressive Eels ran off into the rocks, despite Visbhume’s raging commands. At last he blew a great blast on his pipe which brought the eels to a sudden halt.

Visbhume screamed: “Stand fast! Attack this footling beast, with full force, from all directions! It will cringe before your onslaught!”

The Progressive Eels considered the scene of carnage with large blank eyes. Visbhume exhorted them again: “Strike great blows! Hurl stones and hurtful objects, or even nauseous refuse! Take up spears; stab the thing through and through!”

Certain of the eels heeded the instructions and picked up rocks to throw, but Visbhume’s wrath was not yet appeased. He cried: “Attack! Capture! Marshal the battle-worms! To action, all!”

The man-beast wiped its sword on a corpse and showed Glyneth a grimace of drawn lips and white teeth somewhat difficult to interpret. Shrinking back, she stumbled and started to slide into the pit, but the creature seized her arm and pulled her to safety. Glyneth stared wildly around the landscape, seeking an easy route away from this dreadful place; from the corner of her eye she glimpsed the downward trajectory of a great stone. She lurched aside, and the stone crashed to the surface where she had stood. Another stone slanted down to strike the man-beast’s shoulder; he spun around roaring in rage, but chose not to attack. He slung Glyneth over his shoulder and bounded away up the mountainside.

Visbhume set up an instant scream of indignation. “You are taking my wallet, my personal property! Drop it at once! Theft is a crime! The wallet is mine alone, with my valuable things!”

Glyneth only clutched the wallet more closely, and was whisked up the slope at a speed which made her dizzy.

The creature at last halted and swung Glyneth to the ground.

Glyneth prepared to be devoured or used in some unthinkable fashion, but the creature went to look back the way they had come. It turned around, almost casual in its conduct, showing no signal of menace, and Glyneth drew a deep breath. She ordered her clothes which had become disarranged, then stood hugging Visbhume’s wallet in her arms, wondering woefully how the creature meant to deal with her.

The man-beast made sounds, straining as if it found its larynx a new and unfamiliar tool. Glyneth listened intently; if

it meant to harm her, why should it labor to make her understand? Suddenly Glyneth saw that it intended reassurance; fear left her and despite all efforts at self-control, she began to cry.

The creature continued to make sounds, and began to approach intelligibility. Glyneth, trying to listen, forgot her tears. She prompted him: “Speak slowly! …. Say it once again.”

Using a voice thick and slurred, he began to form understandable words. “I will help you. … Do not be afraid.”

Glyneth asked tremulously: “Did someone send you to elp me?”

“A man with white hair sent me. His name is Murgen. I am Kul! Murgen instructed me in what I must do.”

With dawning hope Glyneth asked: “And what is that?”

“I must take you to where you came into this place, as fast as I can. There is little time, since I had to come so far to find you. We are already here too long.”

Glyneth asked with new foreboding: “And what if we are too late?”

“I will tell you then.” Kul went to look down the slope.

“We must go! The rock-worms are coming with long-point spears to draw my blood. A man in black gives them orders!”

“That is Visbhume. He is a magician, and I took his wallet, which has made him angry.”

“I will kill him presently. Can you walk, or shall I carry you?”

“I can walk very nicely, thank you,” said Glyneth.

“It is not dignified to ride over your shoulder with my bottom in the air.”

“Let us see how fast you can run with dignity.” They climbed the slope until Glyneth began to pant, whereupon Kul threw her over his shoulder once again and bounded up the rocks. Looking backwards, Glyneth could see only space and far downward perspectives; Kul seemed to ignore gravity and equilibrium, and Glyneth finally closed her eyes.

Arriving at the ridge, he set her down. “Now, if we go yonder, behind that forest, we will come down upon the little house. I believe that an hour or two still remain to us, before the gate closes. If all is proper, you will soon be home.”

Glyneth looked at Kul sidelong. “And what of you?”

Kul seemed puzzled. “I have not been told.” “Do you have a home here, or friends?”

“No.”

“That seems strange!”

“Come,” said Kul. “Time is short.”

The two ran along the ridge, with Kul ever more urgent for speed, and when Glyneth could run no further, he again lifted her and carried her, bounding at a slant down the slope. Finally, at a place behind the forest, he set her down. “Come now; let us see how the land lays.”

They went under the balls of dark blue and plum-red foliage and looked across the sward. The hut stood at a distance of a hundred yards. Along the riverbank came Visbhume riding a great black eight-legged beast, flat as a plank across its dorsal surface, with a complicated tangle of horn, flexible eye-stalks, feeding tubes for a head and a wide flat back twenty feet long, where Visbhume rode in fine style on the cushioned top bench of a white howdah. Behind came a band of twenty Progressive Eels carrying spears, along with a dozen other creatures wearing armour of a black metallic substance and tall conical helmets which connected directly to their epaulettes. These goblin-knights carried maces and lances and marched on heavy short legs.