by Jack Sharkey
When we looked back, nothing could be seen save a sea of heaving, foaming, frothing, seething golden lager. The vat, the Centaurs, the Cheesers and the Wumbls had all long since been swirled beneath the thundering amber waves of Schlitz.
CHAPTER 11
ABOUT ten acres of lush forest later, moving faster than was comfortable to make up for the lost time, my ears detected the familiar ‘ching-ching’ of a bicycle bell. We stopped, looking about us, and the cheery little ‘ching-ching’ sounded again. Then from a small copse of trees, a strange figure appeared, pedaling energetically along on a small Schwinn; a mannish creature, two feet tall, with a white beard that came dangerously close to tangling in his wheel spokes. He wore a bright orange doublet, belted with a wide strip of black leather, and joined sturdily in front with a silver buckle four inches on a side. But, most intriguing was his regulation Western Union cap.
"Telegram for Albert Hicks!” he declared, braking.
"I'm Albert Hicks,” I said.
"Whoosh,” said the dwarf, clutching the cap between thumb and forefinger by the visor while he wiped at his dripping brow with the same hand. “Thought I'd never find you. I've been pedaling through the bushes for half an hour!"
"Sorry,” I said lamely. “May I have the telegram?"
"What? Oh. Sure. Here ‘tis!” He poked around inside his cap and withdrew a slightly damp yellow envelope, which he presented with a flourish. Tearing the envelope open, I noticed he was still loitering before me, whistling tunelessly between his teeth.
"Oh,” I said, embarrassed.
I fumbled in my pants pocket and came up with a dime, which I handed to the dwarf. He bit down on the edge of it, snorted at me, and pedaled off huffily into the green shadows of the forest. Timtik was by now dancing up and down in impatience.
"Who's it from, for corn's sake!” he exclaimed.
The telegram was a thick one, and I had to flip to the final page to check the signature. “Maggot,” I said.
"I'd hurry up,” wailed the faun, “and read it!"
I cleared my throat and began:
Dear Albert,
I'm sorry to interrupt your itinerary, but there are a few things you should know before going onward. Too bad about your delay with those damn Centaurs, but at least you've got the silver sword, now (isn't it a honey?), so the interval wasn't a total loss. But unfortunately, the time-lag during your captivity was long enough for the Kwistians to arrive at Sark with the other Lorn.
But don't give up hope. Things could be worse. Don't ask me how; I'm busy making hell-brew. The thing I wanted to warn you about is Cort. He's already questioned the two Kwistians who brought the other Lorn back, and found out about you being here in Drendon.
Cort is upset because he feels you might be bringing the Thrake to the castle, with some sort of magical safeguard for it against his boobytraps, so he's posted a special guard near the main entrance to watch for you when you arrive. This means that you and Timtik and Lorn (if it is Lorn) will have to detour slightly, and come at the castle from the side. Sorry for the inconvenience. Hurry, keep cool, and do your best. I'm sure everything will turn out splendidly. (Well ... fairly sure.)
Give my best to Timtik and Lorn (if that is Lorn with you), and whatever you do—and this is most important!—don't let the Tinklings get under your skin!
Sincerely,
Maggot
P.S. Try and get back before mealtime. I'm baking a cake.
"That's it,” I said, folding the message and tucking it into my shirt pocket. “What did she mean by ‘Tinklings'?"
"Search me,” said Timtik. “Must be some danger that's indigenous to the Sark area. But no one ever comes here unless they have to. Especially wood nymphs."
"Don't remind me!” said Lorn, shuddering. She bounded bravely from her leafy blower, however, and strode off into the shrubbery. Timtik and I raced to keep up. As I watched her relentless progress ahead of us, a rather bothersome thought came to me, and I expressed it to Timtik.
"I've been noticing something,” I said, so Lorn wouldn't hear me. His pointed cars perked forward, curiously. “Your thundershower spell doesn't last long. And that train-ride was only five minutes before it wore out. And that werewolf was refuzzing before we got out of sight. And I'm willing to bet that those drowned Centaurs are lying on a dry field right now, with shriveled Wumbls and an empty bottle. Look at ourselves: Not so much as a whiff of the hops left, and ten minutes ago we were reeking."
Timtik, skipping nimbly through the grass, grinned. “Your sword can't wear out, if that's what's worrying you. Those alternate copper and ivory bands around the handle represent the balance of positive and negative power. The edge of the blade is outgoing power, the flat is incoming. One exerts force, one absorbs it. It can't wear out. Use of the edge drains the flat, and makes it more absorbent; use of the flat sucks power to strengthen the edge."
"Damn it,” I said, “You can't have it both, ways!"
Timtik's nostrils flared, and it seemed momentarily that he was about to blow up with a loud bang. Then he controlled himself, and muttered, “It's magic, you dope!"
"Why didn't you say that in the first place!” I snapped. Then added, "However—” so fiercely that the faun skidded to a halt and stood staring at me.
"Now what?” he said.
"The possibly short-lived sword was not my point,” I said.
His face twisted into an expression of martyred patience, “Which spell bugs you, then?"
"The Scapegoat Spell, that's which!” I growled. “How long before that wears off, and one of the two Lorns vanishes?"
The mockery left Timtik's face and he went a little pale. “Jeepers, Albert, I don't know! In actual time, an hour, but—"
"I know. We've been short circuiting time by taking the long way around, so you have no idea how much real time's gone."
"If we have the real Lorn with us,” he said, hopefully, “Maggot'd send word as soon as the Scapegoat Image vanished from the castle, and we could turn around and go right home.” He looked suddenly uncomfortable. “But if our Lorn vanishes, we'd know the real one was on the brink of the flame—Urk!"
A swatch of thornbush had swung through the air and smacked loudly against his bare chest. “Tangle, Albert,” he muttered, stepping back and brushing at himself. I stepped up beside him, slashing the silver blade through the barbed jungle. It fell into a heap of loose fibers.
"This is the handiest thing!” I enthused, staring in admiration at the blade, its shining surface unsullied by its contact with the thick, moist growths. “With a gadget like this, we hardly need—” My eyes met Timtik's.
"...Lorn!"
The back-snapping bush's significance hit us. Our foliage control was gone as though she'd never existed.
"Lorn?” Timtik called out frantically. “Lorn!"
I joined in yelling her name, but my heart wasn't in it, and neither was his. We knew the truth. The real Lorn was in the castle, prisoner of the Kwistians. And we had yet to reach the side wall.
"Come on, faun!” I said, racing forward through the forest, my silver blade flashing.
* * * *
The mist seeped up from nowhere.
We'd come hurrying out of a thicket, and about halfway across an open stretch of smooth ground, we'd waded into a blanket of billowing vapor at ankle depth. As we moved onward, the air became woven with greyish windings of fog and soon I couldn't see even the top of Timtik's head, although the faun walked right beside me, his hand in mine, lest we become separated.
"Keep your eyes turned upward just a little,” Timtik said softly; something about dense fog makes people whisper. “The fog's thinnest at the top."
"Okay,” I said, “but what am I watching for?"
"The winged towers of Sark.
The towers spread out into great stone: wings in a position of flight. Kwist had them gilded, or something. They look pretty fancy in the sunlight."
As suddenly as it had begun, the mist dispersed
, dwindling into white clumps, which melted into the air with careless rapidity. The sunlight was blinding as it reflected from the great gold-and-stone winged towers of the castle of Sark, just outside the copse in which we stood. A mere two hundred yards across a stretch of purple moss.
"Odds bodkins,” murmured the faun. “That open stretch by the moss is the place we just crossed! The mist must have been Maggot's doing! Otherwise, we'd be full of tridents right now!"
"How do we cross the moss?” I said, uneasily.
"We'll face that problem when we come to it,” said Timtik. “Come on, now, follow me quickly. And Albert, for corn's sake, lower that sword! The way it gleams, you'd be less conspicuous carrying carillon bells!"
"Sorry,” I said. “Which way from here?"
"To the side. And tiptoe till we're away from the main wall. Kwistians have sharp ears."
Accidents will happen. The closest scrutiny can be kept on the most important thing by the most careful guard of the highest integrity, and still things can go wrong. So with Maggot.
As she later informed me, when relating the harrowing details, it was just one of those unavoidable things that make a mockery of care and caution, and the last thing she'd have wanted to see occur.
Dandelions, as plentiful as they may be in any spot where no control is put upon growing things, like to take their own sweet time about seeding. And, as you may recall, the fluff from a dandelion ready to burst into a white spray of tasseled seeds was a necessary ingredient for the hell-brew. Maggot, as can any cook who forgets to check her stores, ran out of this vital ingredient.
Just outside her hut dandelions grew a-plenty. But there was not one that was not bright, moist and yellow. Useless for hell-brew.
But Maggot had a simple spell for aging things, a byproduct of the spell she used to keep her haggard looks down-to-par.
And so, laden with an armload of yellow dandelions, she entered her hut, went to her worktable, and began chanting the spell that would age the yellow into fluffy white. Her plump back was turned to the cluttered shelf over the steaming cauldron of hell-brew, on which squirmed the always-ravenous Thrake.
The all-necessary Thrake.
And that tiny blue animal grew abruptly tired of waiting for Maggot to cater to it, and tried, by the insufficient power of its puny tentacles, to flip itself from the rim of the shelf to the rim of the cauldron which held its bubbling, gluey food.
It missed the rim by an inch, certainly no more. Maggot heard its shrill, hapless squeal as it dropped directly into the scorching tendrils of fire beneath the cauldron. But by this time its cry of discomfort had been long overused, so...
"Patience, patience,” crooned the witch, cackling softly. She turned her head toward the shelf. “Just another few moments, my pretty. As soon as I add these to the brew, I'll—"
Her rheumy red eyes rested upon the unwontedly still clutter of ort and cobwebs. It seemed terribly motionless. Suddenly afraid, the old witch flung the fluff into the cauldron, more to free her hands than anything else, and began to claw through the mess on the shelf, her voice rising in panic. “Thrake? Where are you? Don't play hide-and-seek with poor old Maggot! Where are you hiding? Come out now. I've put your fluff in the hell-brew, and—"
Her eyes, flicking searchingly over the shelf and its vicinity, noted a dangling bit of old hell-brew pendant on the lip of the shelf. With a cry of clairvoyant horror, she crouched and pawed the flame-baked earth directly beneath.
The remains of the Thrake were barely identifiable...
"Hell's bells!” she gasped. “There goes a life of single-minded devotion, up in smoke!” But instead of sitting down and mourning the deceased, her always-practical mind considered the bright side. “Well, I'm no longer tied down,” she mused, pulling at her limp nether lip with a gnarled finger. “So I may as well see what I can do to help Albert in person!” Gleefully, she grabbed a black faggot broom from a dusty corner. “I could use a change of scenery!"
With the grating howl that is the trademark of the traveling witch, she whipped a long black cloak from a peg on the rough wooden wall, tossed it across her shoulders, sat upon the broomstick and went roaring out through a gap in the obediently dodging wall.
"What's that tinkling sound?” I said to Timtik.
His ears pricked up. “I dunno. It's up ahead of us, I think, right on our way to the side wall of the castle. Do you think it's what Maggot warned us about?"
"Wouldn't be a bit surprised,” I said, pulling the telegram from my shirt and consulting it. “She said that we shouldn't let the Tinklings get under our skin. You think the sound's hypnotic, or what?"
"One way to find out,” said the faun.
We hurried forward, and suddenly the forest began to change. A strange dappling of light fell over us, unlike the normal green-gold-pied effect of sunlight through leaves. Bits and pieces of geometric glows danced in rainbow profusion on the tree trunks, on our bodies and faces.
"You don't think it was a misspelling?” I said. “What if she meant ‘Twinklings'?"
"Couldn't have,” said the faun. “Listen..."
I stopped crunching through the underbrush, and heard the sounds, much louder, in an erratic tempo almost in harmonic counterpoint to the coruscations of colored light. “You're right,” I said.
Then we were in an open space, and for the first time saw what lay ahead. Acre upon acre of trees, short shrubs, and twisting vines, ranging in tones from palest pink to bloodiest crimson, from luminous turquoise to lambent purple, from metallic orange to crystalline yellow to sparkling emerald. A small portion of the woods, done up in splendid Easter Parade tones, and every twig, every tendril, every leaf, constructed in the most delicate symmetry and fragile filigree of glass.
I had to shut my eyes and shake my head a moment before proceeding into that chromatic tangle. Then, sword in hand, I followed Timtik in a swift dash toward the glass forest...
...Wind was worming through the leaves. They flicked out of its path with a sound like muted bells, exquisitely toned. The sound was eerily charming, and atomically harmonious, and I rather enjoyed it for the first few paces.
Then my flesh began to prickle. A muscle started jumping under my left eye. The insistent noise of the leaves grew in intensity, and as we drew near the center of the region, a raw discomfort began abrading my flesh. The music of the tinkling leaves was musical no longer. It was as maddening as being locked in an echo chamber with a million Good Humor trucks, each in a different key.
"Timtik!” I said. I stopped walking. My voice was hoarse with tension. I screwed up my face and pulled my elbows tightly up against my ribs.
As if encouraged by my words, the wind became livelier, and the clangor arose in shrill gaiety. My body shook, went into a nervous shiver, horrible little thrills rushed down my spine, through my limbs. My ears rang, and felt like they were drawing away from the noise into my skull. I opened my clenched eyelids to try and see the path out of the flashing chaos, the pandemonic noise, and saw nothing but sparkle and glint and flash. In all directions. Blinding, confusing. Then the babble of glass began to sound like conversation, like the multiphonic sound you hear at a crowded cocktail party.
"Tink?" sang a leaf.
"Kink-ink-kang!” came the response.
"Jang-jing, jing-clang!" interrupted a third.
Other voices joined them.
"Stop!" I called, my voice ripping brutally from my lungs, my eyes rammed shut, heels of my hands clamped futilely against my ears. Something was growing inside me. It burned in my veins, plucked at muscle and bone, ate at my brain...
Directly before me, a fabulous pink-and-green glass rosebush waited hungrily. I started toward it, dazed, my arms going wide to embrace the jagged daggers of leaf and blossom and thorn. An end to the racking torture, to the dizzying lights, to the shrieking sound, to—
And then I saw Timtik, who'd never heard my voice amid the symphony of the deadly forest, who was even now moving blankeyed toward t
he knife-edged forest plants, to spill the total libation of his blood onto the thirsty soil.
"Timtik!” I cried out reflexively, knowing my voice would go unheard. Timtik's face was glazed with a somnambulist's stare as he tottered toward the notched teeth of the beautiful, voracious blossoms.
When the woods had taken enchanted hold upon me, sword and wallet had fallen unnoticed to my feet. I bent swiftly for them now, in my moment of respite, knowing I'd be too late, that Timtik would be impaled on the thousand teeth before I could slash the thing to flinders and spicules.
Inches from the sword-hilt, my fingers halted, and grabbed instead at one of the remaining two spells which had rolled somehow through the flap of the wallet right to my waiting hand. The spool of thread.
In one desperate movement, I scooped it up, straightened my body and flung it beyond Timtik toward the waiting horror.
There came a whirring, a whirring that grew until it was like wind-driven rain hissing through the air. A cloud of twisting, whirling grey-blue spun upward, outward, downward, soaring, arcing, twining, swelling, growing, knotting, tangling, even as I launched myself in a sprawling tackle that brought Timtik to the earth, inches from certain death.
The spool, empty, fell to the ground and bounced once.
I heard its fall distinctly, even on soft earth. For, other than that solitary, tiny sound, the stillness of the forest was deafening. Not even a breeze was heard. Silence, absolute and complete. Blinding sparkle was abruptly drab, dull, shadowy.
I got to my feet and lifted Timtik to his. His face was kind of greenish.
"Let's get a move on,” I said. “We daren't lose any more time!” I picked up the silver sword. Timtik scurried for the wallet and its sole remaining spell, and we raced nimbly toward the far edge of the forest of hungry glass.
Razor-edge, raucous glass. Each separate leaf and branch frozen into helpless silence by countless windings of blue-grey, taut, slender strands of cotton thread, entangling the glass forest in a skein that could barely have been duplicated in scope by the day-long labor of a hundred billion web-spinning spiders.
