The Perfect Host (47 page)

It took only a few minutes to regain the spot where I had left Luana. She was not there.

I stood still, my brain racing. Witches, wizards, familiars … people who could see familiars sucking blood, and people who could not … one more cloven hoof than the good doctor bargained for, and a theory that such a thing came from contact with Something out here, when I knew darned well I had acquired mine in town … a girl who did what her dreams told her to do and another with hair like hot metal and lips bursting with some cool sweetness. And where was she?

I moved into the Wood, walking quietly more because of caution for my torn boot than for any other reason, and peering into the mottled shadows. Once, with my eyes fixed on a distant clearing, I blundered into a nest of paper-wasps with my neck and shoulder. I started violently and moved back. The angry creatures swarmed out and around the damaged nest, and came after me as I sidled away, batting at them. They bumbled against my mouth and hair and forearms, but not one stung me. I remember thinking, when at last I was clear of them, that Claire had said something about bees … but before I could dredge up the thought I saw Luana.

If it had not been for the plaid skirt I couldn’t possibly have seen her. She was as still as a tree-trunk in a little glade, her head bent, watching something which struggled on the ground. Moving closer, silently, I could see her face; and, seeing it, I checked any impulse I might have to call out to her. For her face was a mask, smooth, round-eyed, with curling lips and sharp white teeth, and it was completely motionless except for the irregular flickering of her nostrils, which quivered in a way reminiscent of a snake’s swift, seeking tongue. Slowly she began to bend down. When I could no longer see her face I came closer.

Then I could see. I shall never forget it. That was when the fireworks went out … and a terrible truth took their place.

At the foot of a little bush was a bare spot, brushed clean now of loose leaves, doubtless by the struggles of the rabbit. It was a large brown-brindle rabbit caught in a whip-snare which had fouled in the bush. The snare had caught the animal around the barrel, just behind the forelegs, probably having been set in a runway. The rabbit was very much alive and frightened.

Luana knelt slowly and put out her hands. She picked the rabbit up. I said to myself, the darling! She’s going to help it!… and I said, down deeper, but a woman looks tenderly at the thing she is about to help, and Luana’s face, now, whatever it was, it wasn’t tender.

She lifted the rabbit and bit into it as if it were an apple.

I don’t know what I did. Not exactly. I remember a blur of trunks, and a dim green. I think I heard Luana make a sound, a sign, perhaps—even a low laugh. I don’t know. And I must have run. Once I hit something with my shoulder. Anyway, when I reached Claire and the doctor I was panting hoarsely. They looked up at me as I stood panting, not speaking. Then without a word, Ponder got up and ran back the way I had come.

“Thad! Oh, Thad—what is it?”

I sank down beside her and shook my head.

“Luana? Did something happen to Luana, Thad?”

“I’ll tell you,” I whispered. Something trickled down the outside of my nose. Sweat, I suppose. “I’ll tell you, but not now.”

She pushed my hair back. “All right, Thad,” she said. And that was all, until I got my breath back.

She began to talk then, softly and in a matter-of-fact tone, so that I had to follow what she said; and the sharp crooked edges of horror blunted themselves on new thoughts. She said, “I’m beginning to understand it now, Thad. Some of it is hard to believe, and some of it I just don’t
like
to believe. Doctor Ponder knows a lot, Thad, a whole lot … Look.” She reached into the doctor’s bag, now open, and brought out a limp black book. On its cover, glittering boldly in a sunbeam, was a gilt cross. “You see, Thad? Good and evil … Doctor Ponder’s using this. Could that be evil? And look. Here—read it yourself.” She opened the book at a mark and give it to me.

I wiped my eyes with my knuckles and took the book. It was the Bible, the New Testament, open to the sixth chapter of Matthew. The thirteenth verse was circled: It was the familiar formula of praise:

“Thine is the Kingdom, the Power, and the Glory for ever and ever. Amen.”

“Look at the bottom margin,” she urged.

I looked at the neat block lettering penciled there.
“Ah-tay mahlkuth vé-G’boorah vé-Gédula lé o’lam, om,”
I read haltingly. “What on earth is that?”

“It’s the Hebrew translation of the thirteenth verse. And—it’s the trigger, the incantation Doctor Ponder told us about.”

“Just that? That little bit?”

“Yes. And I’m supposed to go to the Camel’s Grave and face the east and say it. Then the Camel will know that I have been affected and will fix the trouble. Doctor Ponder says that although he is evil—a ‘black’ magician—he can have no reason to leave me in this state.” She leaned forward and lowered her voice. “Nor you either. You’ll go with me and we’ll both be cured.”

“Claire—why haven’t you told him I’ve got a hoof too?”

She looked frightened. “I—can’t,” she whispered. “I tried, and I can’t. There’s something that stops me.”

I looked at the book, reading over the strange, musical sounds of the formula. They had a rhythm, a lilt. Claire said, “Doctor Ponder said I must recite that in a slow monotone, all the while thinking ‘Camel, be buried forever, and never show yourself to mankind.’ ”

“Be buried forever? What about your foot? Aren’t you supposed to say something about your foot?”

“Well, didn’t I?”

“You did not.” I leaned forward and looked close into her eyes. “Say it again.”

“ ‘Camel, be buried forever, and never show yourself to mankind.’ ”

“Where’s the part about the foot?”

She looked at me, puzzled. “Thad—didn’t you hear me? I distinctly said that the Camel was to restore my foot and yours and then lie down and rest.”

“Did you, now? Say it again, just once more, the way you’re supposed to.”

Obediently she said, “ ‘Camel, be buried forever, and never show yourself to mankind.’ There. Was that clear enough? About the foot, and all?”

Suddenly I understood. She didn’t know what she was saying! I patted her knee. “That was fine,” I said. I stood up.

“Where are you going?”

“I have to think,” I said. “Mind, Claire? I think better when I walk. Doctor Ponder’ll be back soon. Wait here, will you?”

She called to me, but I went on into the Wood. Once out of her sight, I circled back and downgrade, emerging on the rim of what I now knew was the Forbidden Valley. From this point I could easily see the bluff at the far end. There was no sign of the skull. I began to walk down to where it should be. I knew now that it was there, whether it could be seen or not. I wished I could be sure of a few dozen other things. Inside, I was still deeply shaken by what I had seen Luana doing, and by what it meant—by what it made of me, of Claire, of Ponder.…

Behind me there was a horrible gargling sound. It was not a growl or a gurgle; it was exactly the hollow, fluid sound that emerges from bathrooms in the laryngitis season. I spun, stared.

Staring back at me was one of the most unprepossessing human beings I have ever seen. He had matted hair and a scraggly beard. His eyes were out of line horizontally, and in disagreement with each other as to what they wanted to look at. One ear was pointed and the other was a mere clump of serrated flesh.

I backed off a pace. “You’re Goo-goo.”

He gabbled at me, waving his arms. It was a disgusting sound. I said, “Don’t try to stop me, Mister America. I know what I’m doing and I mean to do it. If you get too near me I’ll butter these rocks with you.”

He gargled and bubbled away like mad, but kept his distance. Warily I turned and went on down the slope. I thought I heard Claire calling. I strode on, my mind awhirl. Luana. Ponder. Claire. Goo-goo. The chained skull, and the blue beast. The rabbit. Luana, Luana
and those lips … 
Ah-tay mahlkuth …
and a cloven hoof. I shook my head to clear my brain … 
vé-G’boorah
.…

I was on level ground, approaching the bluff. “Get up, Camel!” I barked hoarsely. “Here I come, ready or not!”

Shocking, the skull, the famous mark of the Camel’s Grave, appeared on the ground. It was a worn, weather-beaten skull, worn far past the brilliant bleaching of bones merely desiccated and clean. It was yellowed, paper-brittle. The eyebrow ridges were not very prominent, and the lower jaw, what I could see of it, was long, firm. Its most shocking feature was part of it, but not naturally part of it. It was a chain of some black metal, its lower link disappearing into the ground, its upper one entering the eye socket and coming out through the temple. The chain had a hand-wrought appearance, and although it was probably as thick as the day it was made, unrusted and strong, I knew instinctively that it was old, old. It seemed to be—it
must
be—watching me through its empty sockets. I thought I heard the chain clink once. The bleached horror seemed to be waiting.

There was a small scuffling sound right at my heels. It was Goo-goo. I wheeled, snarling at him. He retreated, mouthing. I ground out, “Keep out of my reach, rosebud, or I’ll flatten you!” and moved around to the left of the skull where I could face the east.

“Ah-tay mahlkuth vé
—
”
I began; and something ran across my foot. It was the blue beast, the familiar. It balanced by the skull, blinking, and disappeared. I looked up to see Goo-goo approaching again. His face was working; he was babbling and drooling.

“Keep clear,” I warned him.

He stopped. His clawlike hand went to his belt. He drew a hornhandled sheath knife. It was blue and keen. I had some difficulty in separating my tongue from the roof of my mouth. I stood stiffly, trying to brace myself the way an alerted cat does, ready to leap in any direction, or up, or flat down.

Goo-goo watched me. He was terrifying because he did not seem particularly tense, and I did not know what he was going to do. What was he, anyway? Surely more than a crazy deaf-mute, mad with loneliness. Was he really the jailer of a great Power? Or was
he, in some way, in league with that disappearing bad-dream of a familiar?

I began again:
“At-tay mahlkuth vé-G’boor
—
“
and again was distracted by the madman. For instead of threatening me with his glittering blade, he was performing some strange manual of arms with it, moving it from shoulder to shoulder as I spoke, extending it outward, upward … and he stopped when I stopped, looking at me anxiously.

At last there seemed to be some pattern, some purpose, to what he was trying to do. When I spoke a certain phrase, he made a certain motion with the knife.
“Ah-tay …”
I said experimentally. He touched his forehead with the knife. I tried it again; he did it again. Slowly, then, without chanting, I recited the whole rigmarole. Following me attentively, he touched his forehead, his chest, his right shoulder, his left, and on the final
“om”
he clasped his hands together with the point of the knife upward.

“Okay, chum,” I said. “Now what?”

He immediately extended the knife to me, hilt first. Amazed, I took it. He nodded encouragingly and babbled. He also smiled, though the same grimace a few minutes earlier, before I was convinced of his honest intentions, would have looked like a yellow-fanged snarl to me. And upon me descended the weight of my appalling ignorance. How much difference did the knife make to the ritual? Was it the difference between blanks and slugs in a gun? Or was it the difference between pointing it at myself or up in the air?

Ponder would know. Ponder, it developed, did, and he told me, and I think he did it in spite of himself. As I stood there staring from the steel to the gibbering Goo-goo, Ponder’s great voice rolled down to me from the Wood end of the vale.
“Thad! Not with the knife!”

I glanced up. Ponder was coming down as fast as he could, helping Claire with one hand and all but dragging Luana with the other. Goo-goo began to dance with impatience, guggling away like an excited ape, pointing at me, at his mouth, at the knife, the staring skull. The blue beast flickered into sight between his legs, beside him, on his shoulder, and for a brief moment on his head, teetering there like some surrealistic plume. I took all this in and felt nothing but utter confusion.

Claire called, “Put down the knife, Thad!”

Something—some strange impulse from deep inside me, made me turn and grin at them as they scurried down toward me. I bellowed, “Why, Doc! I don’t qualify, do I?”

Ponder’s face purpled. “Come out of there!” he roared. “Let Claire do it!”

I reached down and yanked the makeshift stirrup from my boot, laughing like a maniac. I kicked off the toe of the boot with its padding, and hauled the rest up my leg. “What’s she got that I haven’t got?” I yelled.

Ponder, still urging the girls forward, turned on Luana. “You see? He saw you feeding! He could
see
you! You should have known!” and he released her and backhanded her viciously. She rolled with the blow deftly, but a lot of it connected. It was not she, however, but Claire who gasped. Luana’s face was as impassive as ever. I grunted and turned to face the skull, raising the knife. “How’s it go, little man?” I asked Goo-goo. I put the point of the knife on my forehead. “That it?”

He nodded vociferously, and I began to chant.

“Ay-tay …”
I shifted the knife downward to my chest. Ponder was bellowing something. Claire screamed my name.

“Mahlkuth …”
With part of my mind I heard, now, what Ponder was yelling. “You’ll free him! Stop it, you fool, you’ll free him!” And Claire’s voice again: “A gun …” I thought, down deep inside,
Free him!
I put the knife-point on my right shoulder.

“Vé-G’boorah!”
There was a sharp bark of a shot. Something hit the small of my back. The blue beast stumbled from between my feet, and as I shifted the knife to my left shoulder, I saw it bow down and, with its mouth, lay something at my feet. It teetered there for a split second, its eyes winking like fan-blades in bright light, and I’ll swear the little devil grinned at me. Then it was gone, leaving behind a bullet on the grass.