Here be Monsters

CHAPTER 15

Another blade shot up from the trees to parry her blow as its owner called, “Alas, lady, for then could I not embrace you!”

Quicksilver froze, sword high against his, staring into the grinning face of her beloved. But the grin softened into a wondering smile as Geoffrey moved his horse close enough to turn the sword bind into a corps a corps, left arm encircling Quicksilver’s waist, lips claiming hers.

Cordelia stared in surprise, then looked a little miffed. “Shall she have such bounty, and I none?”

“Never!” said another voice.

Turning wide-eyed, she saw Alain riding out of the grove to catch her up in his arms.

Gregory, however, was more circumspect. He rode up to bring his horse next to the cart where Allouette reclined. He asked gravely, “Beloved, how fare you?”

“Nearly starved,” Allouette answered in a suddenly throaty voice, “starved for the feel of your arm about me!”

“And I near to die of a thirst that only your lips can assuage,” Gregory whispered, and leaned down to drink deeply.

Finally each couple broke apart and, with glances of longing, nonetheless turned to the others. “Dearly though I would love to seek a bower with my beloved,” Geoffrey said, “I fear there may not be time for us to indulge in the joy of meeting.”

“And great it is,” Quicksilver said, squeezing his hand. “I would never have thought I could be so delighted by your touch when we have only been parted three days!”

“Ah, but it was three days filled with danger,” Allouette pointed out.

“It was indeed.” Geoffrey turned to her, all concern. “But what dangers have you suffered, my flower?”

Quicksilver smiled, amused. “Nothing that the three of us together could not deal with, kind sir. Cordelia and I were somewhat affronted by your gadding off to adventure without us, so we took horse and followed your trail.”

“It gave out in the swamp, I doubt not,” Geoffrey said, already looking worried.

“It did, so we cast about for a trail of thought and read Allouette’s awakening with a splitting headache. As her memories returned, I discovered she had been kidnapped, so we rode toward her thoughts and soon found the mountaineers’ trail . . .”

“My deepest thanks, sister and warrior,” Gregory said with heartfelt emotion.

Allouette squeezed his hand and said, “They burst out of the forest like avenging Furies and freed me in minutes. We rode away, but discovered a barguest hard upon our trail . . .”

“A barguest!” Alain paled.

“It was no true predictor, but a sham that was easily chased,” Cordelia assured him, then went on to give details.

So for the next half hour, each trio told of the monsters they had encountered. The men were outraged by the ganconer’s imitation of them, and Gregory said nothing when hearing of the selkie’s advances but seemed to swell with the intensity of his anger. Allouette, fairly glowing, only touched his hand, turning the sunshine of her smile upon him, and most of the anger seemed to drain away.

The women were horrified in their turn by the men’s adventures; Quicksilver held tightly to Geoffrey’s hand, as though to remind herself that he was there, alive, and well, as he told of their encounter with the afanc. When they had each brought their account up to that current hour, they sat staring at one another—somewhere during the narration they had all dismounted and sat on the ground in a circle. Then Alain took a breath and said, “None of us thinks that such a plague of monsters can be coincidence.”

“Never, surely!” Cordelia answered. “And both parties have heard of the monsters’ masters, and of Zonploka.”

“But who—or what—is Zonploka?” Gregory asked. “A group of evil sorcerers? One evil sorcerer? A place? An army?”

“Not an army,” Quicksilver replied, “for one told you that it commanded armies.”

“A person, then, and Zonploka is a name.” Alain nodded. “But are these monsters of his making, or his minions’?”

“That matters not,” Cordelia told him, “any more than it would matter whether you could say, if you commanded a general to march against a rebel lord, that the battle that ensued would be his doing more than yours.”

Alain shuddered. “I hope I shall never have to do such a thing! But each of my ancestors has in his turn, even my mother! Thank Heaven she had my father’s support, and that of your parents!”

“As you shall have ours,” Geoffrey assured him, “beginning with this current matter.”

“I thank you, my friends.” Alain beamed around at them, then frowned. “Yet should I send for that army now?”

“What could they do?’ Allouette shrugged. “There is not even a squadron of monsters for them to fight, let alone an army.”

“But the peasants have dreamed of a foul and fell army about to march through the mists!”

“Definitely a portal to another world,” Gregory said, scowling, and turned to Allouette. “But you say they cannot come unless they are invited?”

“Aye,” she answered, “and this Zonploka, or his minions, are sending dreams and cobbling nightmares of witch-moss, to affright the peasants into rituals of just such invitation.”

“Or to turning upon one another with cruelty that is as good as an invitation.” Gregory nodded heavily. “You had the right of it in that, chieftain.”

Quicksilver nodded thanks, unsure whether her old bandit title was a compliment or not.

“Then how can we stop the plague of monsters?” Cordelia asked.

“The answer is plain, though we do not wish it,” Allouette said reluctantly. “We must stop the crafters who make them.”

“But Zonploka will only recruit more crafters,” Cordelia objected.

“Thus we come to it,” Geoffrey said grimly, “as we all really knew we must, sooner or later.”

“Aye,” Alain agreed. “The only cure is to stop Zonploka.”

Cordelia looked up at him, surprised that he had thought the matter through for himself.

“He has been a man of surprises on this quest, our prince,” Geoffrey told her with a wry smile. “He has the right of it, too. If we wait for Zonploka to bring the war to us, it will be too late—certainly too late to prevent great loss of life.”

“If his army is anything like the nightmares he sends, it will also be too late to defend ourselves,” Gregory said grimly.

“Well enough, then,” said Alain. “Where shall we find this Zonploka? And how shall we fight him?”

“We came to the river and saw nothing,” Gregory said slowly, “but we did not wait for evening.”

“Or morning!” Allouette cried. “Of course! It is not that the mist hides the portal—it is the portal!”

“Then let us go back to the river, camp there, and wait for dawn,” Alain proposed. “How, though, shall we fight so powerful a sorcerer, aye, and one with lesser magicians at his command?”

“By magic.” Gregory tuned to Allouette. “We must ponder long and hard, my love, to discover some spells that may counteract the worst Zonploka may throw at us.”

“First we should ponder what magics he may work against us,” Allouette said.

“Aye, and what manner of soldiers we shall confront,” Alain said to Geoffrey, “for surely he shall be well guarded.”

“We faced a giant cat that was well nigh a demon,” Cordelia said with a shudder, “and you faced a giant and bloodthirsty beaver.”

“I should not wish to confront a barguest if it sought to wreak death, not merely foretell it,” Quicksilver said with a frown, “and there may be worse there.” She turned to Geoffrey. “How shall we meet them?”

“Back to back,” he answered, grinning, “serving as one another’s shields, as we have done before.”

She gazed into his eyes a minute before she smiled.

“If we need to fight, that is surely the way,” Alain agreed. “Still, it would do no harm to discuss the issue with the sorcerer first.”

“Oh, aye,” Geoffrey scoffed, “give him time to call up a small army to bait us.”

“Yet we might find other places better suited to his interest, and save fighting for all of us,” Alain pointed out, and grinned as Geoffrey subsided muttering. “I know, my friend, that you do not desire to avoid a fight—but I must ask myself how many people would die in it.”

“Surely you do not think Zonploka can be talked into abandoning this conquest,” Geoffrey objected.

“Why not, if we can show him it will cost him gravely in soldiers and gear, and can find him another place that will cost nothing?”

“Would you send him to murder some other folk, then sir?” Cordelia cried. “Fie, fie!”

“Exactly, my lady.” Alain inclined his head toward her. “His monsters would be a plague in any land—but on this world of Gramarye, only this great island has been made fit for human folk to live on.”

The other three stared at him, beginning to understand. “The rest of the planet is desert and swamp,” said Gregory. “Who shall you send his monsters to raven—the dinosaurs, or the giant insects?”

“Are the deserts truly filled with giant insects?” Alain asked, interested.

“Giant insects, small reptiles, and many varieties of snakes,” Gregory answered.

“Not large enough to satisfy his monsters, I would guess,” Alain said regretfully. “No, I suspect he would rather have the swamps, that his bloodthirsty minions may feast upon dinosaurs.”

“He would rather have Gramarye,” Quicksilver pointed out, “for our folk are more likely to be easy meat than a tyrannosaurus.”

“Not for creatures that fear Cold Iron,” Alain reminded her. “Indeed, even if they do not, a score of giant cats such as this Big Ears you speak of will find even a tyrannosaurus less dangerous than fifty determined yeomen with bows and pikes.”

“I am not sure our people would be the tougher meal,” Geoffrey said judiciously, “but they would cost the monsters many lives, I agree.”

“Many lives!” Quicksilver protested. “They will run in panic at first sight of the creatures!”

“Only the first time they see them,” Geoffrey reminded her, “and perhaps not even then, if we warn them well enough ahead of time.”

“And of course,” Allouette said, “any who are made of witch-moss shall melt even as they advance.” She caught Gregory’s hand again. “There are some among us who can see to that.”

“What of those who are flesh and blood?” Cordelia asked. “Shall we run in fright when we see them?”

“There is not a one of us is not well braced for horrors now,” Quicksilver opined. “Terrified we may be, but we shall attack all the harder for that.”

“Are we agreed, then?” Alain looked around at the little group.

They all nodded their heads, saying, “Aye.”

“Take the fight to the enemy.” Quicksilver said.

“Enough, then.” Geoffrey stood up. “We ride!”

They had to camp for the night—in separate tents, and what each of the three couples did or did not do was nobody else’s business, especially if, as Alain had so far insisted, he and Cordelia had agreed to wait for the more intense delights until they were properly wedded—and royal weddings take a long time to plan and execute. But they were up before the first gray light began to filter into the darkness and reached the riverbank when the sky was bright and the sun still only a rosy forethought in the east. Sure enough, mist hovered above the water, filling the banks of the river and spilling over.

“I had not thought there would be so much!” Cordelia looked to left and to right, seeing the fog stretch out to the limit of sight on either hand. “Where within this nebulous kingdom is their portal?”

“Yonder.” Allouette pointed, though her eyes had the faraway look of one who listened more with her mind than with her ears. They had left the cart behind, and she was riding the little mare.

“Yonder it is,” said Alain, and turned his horse upstream. Cordelia hurried to catch up with him and the others fell in behind. She, too, began to look abstracted, as did her brothers, concentrating on the thoughts that seemed to stem from someplace upstream. Quicksilver glanced at them, nettled, for her own telepathy had not yet developed to be able to detect what they did.

Then their faces began to twist with disgust and horror, and she no longer envied them.

Soon after, the thoughts hit her with an impact that made her shudder; she recoiled from the intensity of the malevolence. She tried to assure herself that the bloodlust and longing to drink emotions of fear and agony were only her interpretation of alien concepts, but she didn’t believe it for a minute.

“Yonder.” Allouette halted the mare in the midst of a river meadow and pointed toward a knot of mist that was floating closer and closer to shore.

Geoffrey’s lips stretched back from his teeth in a wolfish grin as he drew his sword and said, “Set on, and let them drink no emotions of ours but anger and ferocity!”

“Not even that!” Gregory cried, alarmed. “Give them any emotion, brother, and they have a hold on you already!”

Geoffrey turned, frowning. “Why, how is that?”

“Fear begets anger,” Gregory counseled. “So does hurt—and ferocity is first cousin to bloodlust. Nay, brother, if we would defeat this crew, we must march against them with tranquil minds and hearts.”

Geoffrey glowered at him, unable to refute the idea.

“There is truth in what he says,” Alain said quietly. “Our master of arms taught us that anger slows the arm of a swordsman.” He looked around at his companions. “Take a few minutes, friends, to let your emotions ebb and peace of heart and calmness of soul replace them.”

With varying degrees of unwillingness, they complied; they all knew the basic techniques of meditation. Slowly, though, even Geoffrey and Quicksilver felt their excitement fade into calm self-assurance, and something more—all six began to be aware of a bond between them, a tie of kinship, for Cordelia, Geoffrey, and Gregory were siblings, and through them Allouette and Quicksilver were quickly becoming sisters, more thoroughly than the mere title of in-law which they would soon gain, and Alain, too, was becoming their brother-in-law in more than name.

Finally Alain looked up with a sunny smile, glanced from one to another and said, “Sisters and brothers, let us go forth to meet our enemy.”

They smiled their agreement and turned to follow Geoffrey into the knot of mist.

They felt terror clawing its way up inside as their horses balked at the riverbank; they urged the beasts forward nonetheless. Geoffrey’s horse slipped down on one forehoof and neighed in protest, then stopped in surprise. He spoke softly, urging the stallion forward, and the warhorse stepped into the mist, nostrils flaring.

Seeing that nothing had misfallen the first horse, the others followed, and their riders with them, trying to ignore the fear that chilled them. They drew their swords—except for Cordelia and Allouette, who held only daggers but readied their most powerful thought-blasts, even as they resolved to always bear longer blades in the future.

The mist closed about them, swirling and opaque—but carrying sound all the more quickly for its thickness: a chittering, a grumbling, a growling, a sucking, and a rumbling. The riders pushed forward, swords raised, suspense stretching razor-thin—then found the mist clearing as their horses stepped onto a gravelly beach. They stopped a minute, staring in wonder at the blasted landscape before them—gravel stretching away to become hard-packed earth, sere and dry, to left and right—but before them stood a cliff face with a cavemouth yawning lightless.

Flanking it on either side were the afanc, the Boneless, the barguest, and Big Ears and, behind them, the huge shambling figures of two ogres, male and female.

“I see it now!” Gregory cried. “Those we melted were of witch-moss, but they were copies of real creatures who dwell within this land!”

“Say ‘monsters’ as you intended,” the Big Ears purred, “for we are every bit as perilous as you thought—and you shall not melt us here, for we are flesh and blood!”

“Where is ‘here’?” Alain asked.

Quicksilver, Cordelia, and Geoffrey stared at him, appalled that he would parley—but Gregory and Allouette fought smiles, recognizing the wisdom of delay while they pondered their course of action.

“You are in the land of Trahison,” the giant cat told them, “before the stronghold of the sorcerer Zonploka. Lay down your weapons and give up all thoughts of struggle, for Zonploka cannot be beaten.”

“His minions could be,” Alain said, looking grave but fearless. “We know, for we bested copies of some of you, and”—looking directly into Big Ears’ slitted pupils—“in some cases, it seems, the originals.”

“Only on your ground,” the creature spat. “Now, though, you are on ours!”

“I doubt that you are any stronger for it,” said Allouette, “since the life has been leached from this land. It has no more strength to lend you.”

“Strength enough, foolish morsel, as you shall soon discover!”

“ ‘Morsel’?” Cordelia frowned. “Do you not mean ‘mortal’?”

“I mean what I say!” The cat arched its back and spat, “Death to the weaklings!”

Geoffrey and Gregory each exchanged a glance with their fiancées, then disappeared with a double bang, echoed off the cliff face a second later by another double bang.

“See how your brave young men desert you!” Big Ears sneered.

But the women and the prince only glared defiance, for they saw Geoffrey and Gregory clinging to the cliff face one-handed just behind the ogres’ heads, their swords swinging high.

“Lie down,” Big Ears advised, “so that your deaths may be quick!” Then it sprang.

Both women leaped aside. Big Ears twisted in midair trying to follow first one, then the other, and landed in an ungraceful sprawl with a yowl of outrage. It spun toward Quicksilver—but the warrior had leaped back in and thrust her sword deep into the creature’s maw. Big Ears screamed with pain and Quicksilver yanked her hand back out; her blade cleared the creature’s fangs by an inch as its jaws clashed shut, leaking blood.

The afanc chittered with maddened passion and charged toward Quicksilver—but Cordelia glared at it, and its teeth crumbled to powder even as it opened its jaws to bite the warrior. It spun with a shriek of rage, swinging its huge flat tail like a club. It hit Quicksilver with a smack, sending her flying.

Big Ears yowled and leaped—but only a yard; weakened, it could only plod toward the fallen woman as the afanc reared, walking forward on its haunches, thick sharp claws reaching out for Cordelia. The barguest barked furiously and charged, racing Big Ears for Quicksilver. The giant cat spun, spitting, and raked the dog’s side with razor-sharp claws. The barguest yelped with pain but buried its fangs in Big Ears’s throat. The cat brought up its rear legs to rip at the dog’s stomach.

Quicksilver pushed herself upright, shaking her head to clear it.

The Boneless suddenly shot toward Allouette on a chute of slime, pseudopods growing out of its mass to reach for her. Allouette darted toward Quicksilver and her sword, but the Boneless swerved to follow her.

Alain darted in to stab the giant beaver in the belly.

“Alain, no!” Cordelia cried and raced forward just as Alain leaped back; the two collided and fell in a graceless heap. Doubled over with pain and only able to hiss its rage, the afanc nevertheless slashed at them with its claws before it toppled and fell dead upon them.

The ogres, seeing three of their number fallen, roared and shambled forward—but heavy weights hit their necks and shoulders; they stumbled and fell, and Geoffrey and Gregory leaped clear just in time to keep from being pinned beneath them.

Alain heaved with all his might, managing to push himself to his hands and knees, levering the bulk of the dead afanc a foot off the ground. “Quickly, my love,” he groaned, “roll clear!”

Cordelia did, then scrambled upright, shook her head to clear it, and stared at the dead afanc. The carcass lifted itself six more inches of its own accord, on a cushion of her thoughts. “Now you,” she said, teeth gritted with strain. “Out.”

Bellowing with fury, the ogres pushed themselves up—just enough for the two young men to lunge, swords piercing hearts. They leaped back, but not quickly enough; huge fists swung, slamming into them and knocking them together. They fell but shoved against each other even as they did, pushing themselves tottering to their feet—and saw the ogres’ hands falling, their eyes glazing, then their bodies slamming onto the rocky ground like fallen trees. Red stains spread out from each.

Gregory stared, awed by what he had done.

“Forget that female and see to your own!” Geoffrey cried.

Gregory’s head snapped up; he saw Geoffrey running toward Quicksilver who, with Allouette beside her, stood facing a huge, white, gelatinous mound. With a cry of horror, he dashed toward the Boneless.

Then he skidded to a stop, staring at the creature’s bottom edge as it inched forward over the still-kicking corpses of barguest and giant cat.

“Walk warily,” Allouette advised him. “The thing absorbs anything it touches.”

Gregory gave it a wide berth indeed as he went to embrace his fiancée.

“Are you well?” Geoffrey demanded of Alain and Cordelia, who were holding each other up. They blinked, dazed, and nodded. Geoffrey grunted with satisfaction and dashed past them to Quicksilver.

“I am well, doughty warrior,” she assured him. He skidded to a stop and hugged her to him left-handed, his right hand still holding his sword on guard—as was hers.

Gregory had his arm around Allouette’s waist as they backed away from the Boneless. “Think you there is any reason to interrupt its meal?”

“Not really,” she answered, “though it will bear watching. Still, I see no reason to stop it from finishing what we have begun.”

“Someone must clear away the dead,” Gregory agreed, but he shuddered at the manner in which it was being done. Then he realized that Allouette was trembling, too, and turned to embrace her. She let herself go limp in his arms, let the trembling take hold of her, then gradually slacken and cease. Finally she looked up, to see him beaming down at her with pride. She blinked, nonplussed, then straightened a little, bringing her face closer to his; their lips touched in a kiss, touched and stayed.

Finally the shaking stopped and the three couples withdrew from kissing and turned to blink at one anther in amazement. Alain put words to it. “We are alive,” he said in tones of wonder.

“And not much the worse for wear,” Quicksilver agreed.

“Cold Iron seems to weaken these creatures as badly as it did their witch-moss doubles,” Gregory concluded.

“It must indeed,” Cordelia said, “for how else could six quite human people prevail against such ferocious monsters?”

“There is, then, some reason to feel we may match wits with their master.” Alain turned somberly to the cavemouth. “Let us see what lies within.”

“Aye, let us,” Cordelia agreed.

Hands linked and gaining strength from one another, they detoured carefully around the Boneless, still intent on its hideous meal, and stepped into the gloom of the rocky portal. The others followed with similar caution.

The rocky walls narrowed as they went farther in until they found themselves in a twisting downward passage. The first twist cut off the light.

“Hold, I pray you.” Cordelia pulled Alain to a stop, held her palm out flat, and thought hard of racing molecules. A dot glowed to life above her palm, glowed and grew till it was a large rotating globe, casting light all about them.

Alain sucked in his breath. “Lady, you shall never cease to amaze me!”

“I hope that shall prove true, sir,” she said with a heavy-lidded smile, then turned to start walking downward again. “Let us see what lies below.”

Step by step they traced the downward spiral, wary of booby traps and enemies, but nothing stayed them. Tension mounted as they crept farther and farther below, tighter and tighter until Allouette thought she would scream.

Suddenly, though, the tunnel opened out into a cavern, pillared with stalagmites and stalactites joined, lit by lamps hammered into the walls—jets, rather, tapping into fissures of natural gas. They gave a yellow glow to the huge chamber, focusing on the center—a dais holding a giant chair, almost a throne. Within it sat a tall, skinny, horse-faced man clad in blood-red robes with a high pointed hat, bright vindictive eyes under lowering brows, an aquiline nose, and a smile of smug satisfaction.

“Welcome to my parlor,” the sorcerer purred. “Call me Zonploka.”