by Hugh Cook
So the Witchlord ventured forward. He drew level with the murkbeast.
And -
And took another step.
And abruptly lurched, and fell.
"Father!" shrieked Guest.
The cry was torn from him, as if with hooks. The murkbeast had the Witchlord! Had him, had seized him!
And Guest, in shamed horror, found himself rooted to the spot, paralyzed by his own terror. He could not do the manly thing. He could not dare the forward step, even though his father was down, was -
Was -
Was getting up ....
"Uh," said Lord Onosh, grunting.
Then he spat out mud.
Then he turned to Guest, and said:-
"There are little brutes in imitation of the big one. A little one grabbed me, but my hand was enough for its strangulation."Guest was still unable to speak, but grunted, hoping his grunt did not betray too much of his wet and shit-sliding terror.
"Come," said his father. "It's safe."
Obedient to this encouragement, Guest drew his sword and began to venture toward his father.
The mud in the cave was particularly sticky, or so it seemed to Guest. His boots bogged deep with every footstep, and it was a physical effort to pull each foot free from the morass.
"Slowly," said Lord Onosh, sensing or seeing Guest's distress. "Slowly does it. Slow and steady."
"Slow and steady," said Guest, his voice trembling involuntarily as he took up that refrain.
Even as he said it, a tentacle uncurled itself in lazy leisure and reached out in Guest's direction.
"Careful," said his father, thinking the tentacle was but feinting.
Then the heavy weight of the tentacle slammed itself down on Guest's shoulder, slapped home in a positively convivial manner, then abruptly whipped itself around his neck and started to tighten.
"Gah!" said Guest, with a choked cry barely a hair's-breadth from strangulation.
The tentacle was pulling on him. Not with any unduly monstrous force, but with a sufficiency of effort to shortly secure his death.Guest had been judged by the murkbeast, and condemned, and sentenced to death by hanging!
When he realized that, the Weaponmaster became icy calm. The worst had happened. The murkbeast had him.
So.
When a dog seizes upon your hand, you must not pull it away, for that is what the dog is expecting. Rather, you must plunge that hand fiercely down the dog's throat, and use the other hand to destroy the brute which has seized you.
So thinking, Guest ceased to resist. With a mighty lunge, he hurled himself at the murkbeast. Taken by surprise, its tentacle momentarily slackened. By rights, Guest should have used the slackening to attack the murkbeast. But - weakened by fear, and by long habit of irresolution - the Weaponmaster yielded to the entirely human impulse to free the slack of the tentacle from his neck.
By trying to do so, he lost his chance. The murkbeast recovered itself, fed strength into the tentacle, held Guest tight, then abruptly jerked him off his feet and hauled him toward its gaping toad-mouth.
"Father!" screamed Guest.
But his father could not help him now. The murkbeast had him, and would engulf him in moments, sucking him down to a suffocating doom, or breaking him with its bone-munching strength.
Chapter Thirty-Seven
Cornucopia: horn of plenty rumored to lie in the Stench Caves of Logthok Norgos. Many people have died questing for this legendary generator of wealth, most notoriously Uri the Valorous, far-famed master of insouciant courage. It is possible that the murkbeast which dwells near the entrance to the caves bears much of the responsibility for the 100% fatality rate amongst cornucopia-questers. The above-mentioned murkbeast currently has Guest Gulkan by the ankle, is dragging him toward its maw, and looks set to munch him down in moments.
As Guest Gulkan screamed, the murkbeast wrenched him toward its maw. With one convulsive spasm of strength, it got his booted foot inside its mouth.
Then stopped.
"Gods, gods, gods," sobbed Guest.
Lazily, the murkbeast tasted his boot.
So there was Guest Gulkan, down on his elbows in the muck, his sword in his hand but in no position to strike. His foot was in the murkbeast's mouth. And it was ... it was making up its mind. Thanks to its prodigious strength, the murkbeast could torn its prisoner from limb to limb had it so wished. But the thing had bruited down a sating surfeit of the Mutilator's soldiers, and had no true appetite for further human flesh.
Even so, the thing was seriously considering gulleting Guest Gulkan as well. The murkbeast was like a small child which has stuffed itself with sweetmeats to the point of vomiting, but is still tempted by the gross and slimy glitter of a candied cherry, and deludes itself into thinking it can munch down that cherry while still escaping the painful and inevitable consequences of further gluttony.
"Help me!" said Guest, in a very whimper of uncontrolled and uncontrollable terror.
The cut-thrust heat of action was over. Time had slowed to a slow ooze, and in that ooze the Weaponmaster had all too much opportunity to consider the dreadfulness of his situation. Here we must remember that Guest Gulkan had already lost his limbs on one occasion, arms and legs having been torn away by the Great Mink in an arena in Chi'ash-lan. That being so, he knew the truth of pain, and knew that there is nothing worse.
"Be still," said Lord Onosh, urgently.
This was the most useless of all conceivable advice, for Guest was already being still. Very still. Furthermore, he had absolutely no intention of being anything else. But his studied quiescence did him no good at all. The tentacle wrapped round his ankle tightened. Then wrenched. Then pulled off his boot.Guest screamed.
"Has it hurt you?" said the Witchlord.
That sobered Guest sufficiently to allow him to give voice to an obscenity. Upon which the murkbeast swallowed his boot, decided it liked leather, and helped itself to the other.
"The boots have gone," said Guest flatly. "It will be flesh and blood next."
At which, Lord Onosh hesitated. Then kicked something.
Stooped. Grabbed something from the muck, and began to haul it towards the murkbeast.
"What are you doing?" said Guest.
"I'm - "
The murkbeast sucked roughly on Guest's feet.
"God's grief!" said Guest, sobbing in uncontrollable terror.
"Hold on, hold on," said his father. "I'm coming."
Indeed, the Witchlord was floundering through the mud with all the speed he could muster, dragging with him the corpse of one of the Mutilator's guards. As he closed the distance, Lord Onosh sheathed his sword and held the corpse in front of him as a shield.
The Witchlord's approach put the murkbeast in something of a minor quandary. If this dumb two-legged animal was going to walk right into its mouth, then there was no need for the murkbeast to waste time by capturing it. But what if it changed its mind? Best to make sure ....
So thinking, the murkbeast extended a lazy tentacle and grabbed the corpse which Lord Onosh was holding in front of him as a shield. Lord Onosh heaved mightily on that corpse. Thinking it held a living animal with its tentacle, and thinking that animal was struggling to get away, the murkbeast heaved mightily on the corpse, wrenched it from the Witchlord's grasp and hauled it towards its mouth.
Lord Onosh then tried to attack, thinking to close with the monster and kill it while it was corpse-consuming. But the mud was too thick, too clutching, and he was still floundering even as the murkbeast opened its mouth wide enough to swallow both Guest Gulkan and the corpse simultaneously.Guest felt himself being sucked into the murkbeast's mouth.
"Your sword!" yelled his father. "You still have your sword!"
True.
Clutching his sword, Guest fought savagely, turning himself onto his back as he was sucked into the murkbeast's mouth.
Clasping his sword with both hands, he turned the blade upwards.
Even as the murkbeast bit down
.
The murkbeast munched down with full force, munched without thought, driving Guest Gulkan's sword upward through the roof of its mouth. The pain of this unprecedented wound sent it into spasms. Caught still in its mouth, Guest was trapped by the wet, pumping lubrication of the murkbeast's spasming organ of absorbtion. He was being stifled, pulped, crushed. He could not breathe. A huge heat was drowning him, was -
"Ya!"
The shout was the Witchlord's, a shout of wrath, a shout so loud that Guest heard it even in his confinement. With that shout, the Witchlord drove his sword deep into the murkbeast's guard- glutted stalk.
This rupture of its belly was more than the murkbeast could stand. Insane with pain, it vomited up the contents of its gut. Guest was ejected in a hurtling spurt which saw him thrown to the mud, with a rain of corpse-mash splattering down on him.
Then the murkbeast collapsed in a shuddering heap, and Lord Onosh grabbed his son and dragged him to safety.
"Gods," said Guest, when his father released him. "I'm - "
"Hush down," said the Witchlord. "Hush down, and still. Lie still, and rest ... "
Whereupon his son, needing no further introduction, flopped like a rag doll. A very muddy, wet, disheveled rag doll. A barefooted rag doll.
Even after all the trauma he had so recently suffered, the Weaponmaster had wit enough to lament the loss of his boots, for an underground warren like the Stench Caves was sure to be prodigiously productive of things which could tear the feet.
"Well," said Lord Onosh, at length, "at least we're through the worst of it."
"Are we?" said Guest.
"We got past the - the thing," said Lord Onosh.
"The murkbeast," said Guest.
"You had heard of it?" said Lord Onosh.
"I had not heard of it," said Guest, "but my many travels have made me adroit in putting names to unknown things. We will call it the murkbeast."
"The eater of many men," said Lord Onosh.
"Doubtless," said Guest. "But it can hardly have eaten everyone."
Many people had quested into the Stench Caves in search of the cornucopia. None had survived. Guest doubted that a mere murkbeast could have been sufficient for the destruction of so many heroes - for, after all, the murkbeast had not proved a match for two brawny Yarglat barbarians, and some of those who had quested into the Stench Caves had gone in great companies, strongly armed and surely proof against all but the worst of violence.
"You are very much the pessimist today," said Lord Onosh. "So I hope you won't be too offended if I give you some good news."
"What good news?" said Guest.
"I spy light," said his father. "White light. Over there."
With that, Lord Onosh pointed in a direction which might have been north, south, east or west - there was no telling precisely which, for both Witchlord and Weaponmaster had got hopelessly turned around in their underground adventuring.
"It is white light, yes," said Guest. "A good change from this liquid vomit of green which pours down upon us. Very well, then. I am ready for the journey."
"So let's be going," said his father - spuriously, but the Witchlord found himself reluctant to let his son claim the initiative.
With that, the pair set off toward the white light, which grew to a steady promise, a promise which was fulfilled when they gained the safety of a tunnel smooth-walled, level, flat and warm.
In that tunnel, there was music - quiet music, not like the roiling measures of the musicians of Sung, but subtle easings reminiscent of the drift of the sea, and backed by a leisured pulse which spoke of the womb at midnight.
The light which lit this tunnel was that of mother-of-pearl: a gleaming gloss with something of the restfulness of gray about it. Into this restfulness there ventured the two Yarglat barbarians. Both had lost their swords in the battle with the murkbeast, though they still had knives, throwing stars, eye- gouging handscrews, darning needles and packets of pepper. And Guest still had - it was safe in a buckle-down sheath - the bead- tipped blade which he had stolen from the Mutilator.
Thus armed, the pair proceeded down the corridor, looking like two mud-besplattered lunatics who had escaped from an asylum by way of a swamp. They had the wary look of men for whom the world has become a place of hallucinatory shock, of untrustworthy delusion, of tripwire and deadfall.
Yet ....
The swooming music continued its sundering lunder-munder melodiby, drowsing all with restfulness; and the tunnel was pleasantly warm, with the nondescript gray tiles assuming a similar warmth beneath Guest Gulkan's naked feet; and the way was clear, and ....
"Stop," said Lord Onosh.Guest stopped immediately.
"There's a ... a rat or something," said Lord Onosh.
"Where?" said Guest, looking down the corridor, which curved subtly as it disappeared into the distance.
"There's a door," said Lord Onosh. "Do you see it?"
Even as the Witchlord spoke, an animal ventured from a door some thirty paces away.
"It is a rat," said Guest.
"A tame rat, perhaps," said Lord Onosh.
"We'll see," said Guest.
And with that, the two advanced upon the small creature, which made no move to run away. It was certainly built along the general lines of a rat, but as they approached it sat up on its hindpaws, and seemed quite comfortable in that posture. Guest studied the beast with caution, knowing that a wild animal that is over-friendly may well have rabies.
He remembered an episode from way back in his past, when, in the early years of his youth, he had ventured down from the Ibsen-Iktus Mountains in the company of the witch Zelafona, her dwarfson Glambrax and others. Glambrax had been bitten by a dog believed to be rabid, which had occasioned a great lecture from Sken-Pitilkin on the subject of rabies.
"This thing may be diseased," said Guest. "As the fox from the forest which licks your hand may be dooming you to death by rabies, so too may this thing."
"Perhaps," said Lord Onosh. "But it looks a pleasant enough creature."
This was so odd, coming from the Witchlord, that Guest Gulkan half-wondered whether the soothing background music had addled his father's head. But ... well, it had to be admitted that the thing in front of them was certainly layered with cuteness, so much so that Guest was hardly sure whether it was any kind of rat at all.
"It's soft," said Guest, who was by now almost within grabbing distance of the thing. "And a little bit plump."
"A rat well-fed," said his father.
"I'm not a rat," said the beast, sounding very offended.
The quokka spoke in Eparget, the very Yarglat tongue in which Witchlord and Weaponmaster had been conversing. To hear the creature speak shocked both barbarians to silence.
Lord Onosh sucked in breath through his teeth.
And Guest -Guest found himself sweating. He reminded himself that there are no such things as talking animals. Guest remembered Sken-Pitilkin telling him as much. There are no talking animals, just as there are no orcs, elves or leprechauns. They are things of fantasy, things which have no place in our world of mud and blood and toil and disease, of sickness and failure, of human frailty and invincible death.
Yet!
"You," said the Witchlord, heavily, "you are a rat."
"I am not!" protested the beast.
"What are you, then?" said Guest, feeling himself dragged into this conversation rather against his better judgment.
"I'm a quokka."
"A quokka?" said Guest. "What in the name of Behenial is a quokka?"
"What, for that matter, is Behenial?" said his father.
"Behenial," said Guest, "is one of the gods my good friend Rolf Thelemite used to swear by. Now, by the name of Behenial - what are you, quokka-thing?"
"I'm a philosopher," said the quokka.
"I asked not of your profession but of your species," said Guest. "Of your species, your kind. What manner of thing is a quokka?"
"It is a marsupial," said the quokka.<
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"And," said Guest Gulkan, unable to keep himself from asking the next and most obvious question, "what then is a marsupial?"
"A kind of rat, obviously," said his father. "Shall you kill it or shall I?"
"I will," said Guest.
"No!" squealed the quokka.
And fled.
Now it might be thought that Witchlord and Weaponmaster had better things to do than hunt after a small furry animal - even an animal which spoke. But both were in a mood for a meal, and both remembered the most excellent taste of the roast rat which had been served to them before their entry into the nethermost depths of the Stench Caves. Accordingly, they set themselves to pursue the quokka-rat, which fled down a sidetunnel which led into a -
Witchlord and Weaponmaster halted at the end of the sidetunnel, and gaped at the vast chamber into which it led.
It was a huge chamber, lit by trumpeting radiance, and dominated by a gigantic multi-tiered banqueting table, the most enormous banqueting table which ever was. It was gorgeous with the orange of oranges, the red gloss of apples, a cascade of cucumbers awash in a river of rain-flushed lettuce leaves. Wine winked in a constellation of crystal vases. Milk and honey ran in rivers. And there were cakes, cakes loaded with cherries, bulging with almonds, adorned with marzipan. And there were cones of sugar, absolute cones of it, fantastically expensive, the height of luxury.
"Grief of a dog!" said Lord Onosh in astonishment.
Then made as if to enter.
But to Guest, this place had an ugly familiarity. It was familiarity by analogy. The Stench Caves were an underworld, a veritable Downstairs, and in this underground was something possessed of an uncommon linguistic fluency, and associated with this was an intoxicating allurement which was analogous to -
"No!" said Guest, grabbing his father He grabbed so roughly that the Witchlord at first feared his son to be intent on murder, and tried to break free.
"Let go!" said Lord Onosh.
"No, no," said Guest desperately. "You can't go in, it's murder."
"If it will make you happy," said Lord Onosh, with an ill grace, "then I'll stand here all day and slaver. But come tomorrow, I'll go in and eat!"
