This Crooked Way

by James Enge

  “This appears to be a trap set by a gnome,” Morlock said. “We were meant to leap forward in relief onto the clear road and fall into the pit.”

  “Screw you!”

  “You're not my type,” Morlock replied sharply, a little annoyed for the first time.

  “Why? Too strong? Too independent? Too—”

  “Too stupid. Listen, won't you? This is life or death for us.”

  Rhabia settled down. Wordlessly, she motioned him to continue.

  “The gnome will be nearby, and he will have set more traps. We had better leave the road, and we had better split up. I'll go south of the road; you go north. If you run into trouble, call out and I'll do what I can for you.”

  “Fine. Except I'll go south and you'll go north. And if you get in trouble, be sure to call out. Someone might give a damn.”

  Morlock shrugged and stowed the shovel in his pack. Rhabia stormed off into the woods on the south side of the road and began to make her way toward Seven Stones.

  She hadn't gone very far when she heard some sort of noise from the woods on the north side of the road. She wasn't sure what it was, but it had to have been pretty loud, or she wouldn't have heard anything over the howling wind.

  “Morlock!” she hollered, peering through the snow-swept darkness.

  There was a small light, there, on the other side of the road. And there was something that looked a little like Morlock, only it was several feet off the ground, struggling in the limbs of a tree. Only the tree limbs were prehensile, like a monkey's tail, and the more she looked at it, the less it looked like a tree.

  And down by the light…holding the light: what was that? Shorter than most men, with a flat head, covered with yellowish woolly fur, with ears pointing toward the horizon…a gnome? It was fussing with something bulky that lay on the ground. Morlock's pack?

  This was clearly her chance to escape. The road-pit was between her and them. Even if the gnome saw her, what could he do about it? This was clearly her chance to escape. Too bad for Morlock, of course, but so what? The trouble was…there was something about some poor fool trapped in a situation that was his own damn fault that brought out the maternal in her. Usually her good sense trumped any impulse to intervene between the fool and his fate. But she was uneasily aware that, had she not snappishly overruled Morlock, that might be her struggling over there in the not-tree. Plus there was something he'd said….

  …call out and I'll do what I can for you….

  But the shoe was on the other foot, apparently, and it was up to her to do something for him, if she could. Rhabia swore silently but sincerely and drew her long knife, the one balanced for throwing. The gnome, or whatever it was, had a tendency to dance around a bit, but eventually he grew still again. She took aim and threw.

  It was a good throw. In that light, at that distance, in that weather, she had no hope it would be a fatal blow. (Where were the internal organs in a gnome, anyway?) But at least it might hurt him; at best it might seriously trouble him.

  At the last minute, though, the dagger slid aside and the point buried itself in snow. It might have been a gust of wind, but Rhabia didn't think so. The gnome dove and grabbed the dagger. He seemed to sniff it, and then he looked directly, searingly intently at her.

  “Damn.” Morlock—if it was Morlock (she thought it was)—was no longer struggling in the tree…if it was a tree (she didn't think it was). That gnome had nothing else to do now but come after her. She would have run off into the woods, but she found she couldn't move.

  The gnome tossed what looked like a coil of rope across the road. It tied itself to a nearby tree. The gnome leapt up on the rope and skated nimbly across.

  “Oh ho!” it said in a scratchy repellent voice as it looked up at her with the dark beautiful eyes of an evil kitten. “I'll have fresh meat for breakfast and lunch, or my name isn't All-Wise!”

  It wasn't, as she later learned. But even if she'd known then, it wouldn't have made her feel any better.

  The gnome who called himself All-Wise took them to his cave on the back of a big beast, like a bear with no head and leathery paws that were red as a sunset. Morlock appeared to be unconscious, but still alive; his clothing was torn and there were wounds on his face. Rhabia herself could not move, except to breathe and blink. Whatever he had zapped her with had a lot of staying power. The journey seemed endless; certainly hours passed as the headless bear lumbered after the gnome through the dense, high snow.

  When they reached the gnome's cave, the headless bear shrugged them off onto the ground. The gnome took a flute or whistle from his gray smock; it looked like it was carved from brown bone. The gnome played a little tune, and the headless bear shrank until the gnome stopped playing, scooped up the tiny beast, and tucked it and the flute away in the same pocket.

  He tossed Morlock's pack into the cave. Then he took Rhabia and Morlock, each by the collar, and dragged them (apparently without effort; he seemed to be strong as an ox, if nothing like as large) into the cave entrance. There was a large chamber filled with many peculiar things, like some sort of magical workshop, but the gnome didn't linger there. He hauled them to the back of the chamber, down a long tunnel covered with mirrors and odd writing, into a larger gloomier chamber deep underground where several iron cages dangled from the roof. There were mirrors and scribbling all over the walls here, too.

  The gnome tossed them each into a cage and searched their persons with impersonal efficiency, taking all of their weapons and removing several inexplicable items from pockets of Morlock's clothes; finally he locked them in. Then he turned to Rhabia and, making an odd gesture through the iron gate, said, “You can speak and move. Is he”—a jerk of the bristly flat-topped head—”really Morlock Ambrosius?”

  “Morlock, Ingrabe's son,” she replied instantly. “He's a tinker, passing through this area. We—”

  “You are a very poor liar,” the gnome crowed, “as well as being remarkably ugly. You should strive for excellence in all things. This is the watchword I have made the…er…watchword of my life.”

  Something in the cave smelled rather strongly of rancid fat and as he moved around, Rhabia realized it was the gnome. She also realized that his “fur” was not really fur. It appeared to be a carpet of long yellowish gray warts completely covering his skin. They glistened in the light of the flameless lamp; she guessed that he rubbed fat on himself to protect against the cold.

  “This isn't good, is it?” she said, more to herself than him.

  “It's better than good!” the gnome responded. “Everything here, everything I am, is the best. I am All-Wise, All-Strong, All-Beautiful!”

  “Your smell is pretty strong, anyway,” she said scornfully. He could kill her if he wanted, but she wasn't going to flatter him.

  But the gnome took it as a compliment, with a smirk twisting his warty face. “Oh, true: very true! A powerful and pleasing scent, refined and carefully aged animal fat mixing with my natural fragrance. I envy you for being able to smell it so clearly, and for the delight of seeing me for the first time. I would wish I were you, if you weren't so horribly ugly.”

  “Watch that!” she snapped. Maybe she wasn't some rose-petal goddess, but she had her share of admirers.

  “Can't bear to,” All-Wise (etc.) admitted cheerfully, averting his eyes from her to a smudgy mirror hanging nearby. There was one of these almost anywhere one looked, all over the walls of the dingy place. Dim flameless globes set over some of the mirrors provided a bare minimum of light. Wall space not hidden by mirrors was thickly larded with graffiti—Rhabia couldn't read a lot of it, but the name (?) NURGNATZ was repeated over and over. “But don't worry!” All-Wise said generously. “You can look at me as much as you like. The effluvium of my beauty is inexhaustible, no matter how many hungry eyes feed on it.”

  At this point Morlock began to move sluggishly on the floor of his cage and All-Wise began to scream, “Wake up! Wake up! You're missing everything!”

  Morlock's h
ead jerked and his eyes opened. “What am I missing?” he croaked.

  All-Wise made an impatient gesture, as if it pained him to have to explain the obvious. “Me.”

  “Eh,” said Morlock.

  “Something wittier please, Morlock—much wittier!” All-Wise sneered. “Try to match my high standard of conversation! You'll never make it, of course, but the effort should inspire you to undreamed-of heights! Why, just the other day I was saying to myself—”

  “What is it you want?” Morlock cut in.

  The gnome looked confused. On the one hand, Rhabia reflected, Morlock had interrupted him. On the other hand, it was a fresh opportunity to talk on his favorite subject: himself.

  “Want?” he said querulously at last. “I want to give you your finest hour! I want to give you a chance at greatness! I want to give you a golden opportunity that—”

  “Can be described only in cliches, it seems,” Morlock observed dryly to Rhabia.

  “I'm going to cut you open and eat you,” All-Wise snapped. “That way, you will be mingled with my greatness, although I don't expect you to be grateful for it.”

  “We're not,” Rhabia confirmed.

  “But I'm tired of your insolence!” the gnome screamed at Morlock. “Tired of your lies! Tired of your slander!”

  “Whom have I been slandering?” Morlock asked, glancing around the dim mirror-encrusted room.

  “Me! You claim to be the master of all makers—”

  “No.”

  “—when you know full well that I am the greatest of all makers!”

  “I never heard of you until today, Nurgnatz.”

  “That's an obvious lie, since—” the gnome began, and then interrupted himself to scream, “Hey! My name is All-Wise!”

  “These walls are covered with love poetry to someone named Nurgnatz,” Morlock replied. “The one I can see most clearly begins, ‘Oh Nurgnatz, your thighs like thunder bestride the yearning world—’”

  “Those were written by my many admirers!”

  “They're all in the same handwriting and none of them is written higher than what is eye-level for you. But I take it you admit your name is Nurgnatz.”

  The gnome ground an ugly yellow tooth or two and then snapped, “It was Nurgnatz. I changed my name to reflect my true nature! All-Wise, All-Strong, All-Beautiful!”

  “Why did you ever call yourself Nurgnatz, then?” Rhabia wondered.

  The gnome glanced darkly at her and said, “It was my sister's idea. We agreed to name each other.”

  “And what did you name her?” Rhabia asked.

  “Glundoschlunk,” Nurgnatz admitted. “But she was ugly. You can't imagine how ugly she was!”

  “About four and a half feet tall, flat head, covered with yellow-gray warts,” Morlock guessed.

  “It's a good start,” Nurgnatz admitted modestly. “But she never anointed her warts with tallow! Often they exhibited a dry encrustation! Is this not repellent?”

  “In context, no.”

  “After eating dragon-dung cakes she never rinsed her mouth with dreck-ooze! Does this not disgust you?”

  “Not as much as you do.”

  Nurgnatz laughed indifferently. His ego was unassailable; he simply didn't believe Morlock. Rhabia was leaning forward against the door of her cage, staring with unguarded interest at the gnome. He turned toward her and, without warning, leapt forward, his fangs bare. Rhabia jumped back, but not before she felt a shock like a hammer-blow on her left hand. Looking down, she saw blood pouring from two stumps. Looking up, she saw her two middle fingers dangling like burst sausages from Nurgnatz's yellowish gray lips, blood streaking the warts below his mouth like a beard. He sucked them into his maw and began to chew.

  Rhabia swore more or less continuously as she wrapped up her wounded hand in a bandage torn from her clothing.

  “Well, I was hungry,” Nurgnatz replied, as if that explained everything. He turned back to Morlock. “I'm wasting too much time here. I wanted to ask you how to get into your backpack. I'm sure there are some interesting items in there that could enhance my reputation, making up in some slight way—”

  “I had some problems with thieves,” Morlock interrupted, “so I set a seal on it. You won't be able to open it.”

  “That's my point, Morlock; do try to keep up. I can't get it open, and I want to. How do I go about it? I'm going to eat you anyway; there's no point in your stuff going to waste. Do be reasonable.”

  Morlock said, “Death and Sleep are brothers. I am not afraid of dying, as long as—” He broke off abruptly.

  “As long as what?” Nurgnatz prompted him. “What is it that frightens you more than Death or Sleep?”

  Rhabia heard all this dimly through a red haze of pain and anger and shame. She was sick at the thought of being mutilated, and the torn flesh of her finger-stumps felt as if there were little fires, growing more intense all the time, and she was furious at Nurgnatz for biting her and at herself for letting it happen. She was even angry at Morlock, who just stood there in his cage and gaped uselessly at her. The burning pain in her wounded hand reminded her somehow of the message set on fire by the wound in Morlock's hand, and she suddenly thought of a way to get revenge on the gnome who had mutilated her.

  She laughed harshly. “I know what he's afraid of,” she said to the gnome. “I'll tell you.”

  Morlock looked at her as if he'd been slapped, and the gnome turned with relief to his more cooperative witness. “Well?” Nurgnatz said.

  “I'll tell you if you promise me something,” Rhabia said slowly.

  “Don't!” shouted Morlock.

  “What is it?” Nurgnatz asked.

  “I want you to kill me before you eat the rest of me,” Rhabia said dully. “I don't want to be eaten piece by piece.”

  “Hm,” Nurgnatz said slowly. “It's rather a great concession, as I like my meat fresh and fresh. Still. Very well.”

  “Don't do it!” Morlock urged. “He's lying to you!”

  “It's fire,” Rhabia said swiftly, before she could change her mind. “Morlock's terrified of it. I had to make the campfire and cook the food all through the trip—”

  “Eh,” Morlock said weakly, “it's woman's work.”

  “We'll see about that,” Nurgnatz said thoughtfully. “I've a grill upstairs I haven't used for ages. Shall we try it out, Morlock?”

  “You wouldn't dare,” replied Morlock glumly.

  “You forget I am All-Wise, All-Strong, All-Brave—the compendium of all the virtues! We'll test yours in a little while,” he leered, and scampered back the way he had brought them.

  Morlock said nothing but reached into his boot and drew out a little piece of metal. He reached through the bars of his cage and tossed it to Rhabia. She caught it with her unwounded hand and looked at it. It was an odd little thing, like a long blunt needle with many flexible joints. She'd never seen anything like it, but she was very much mistaken if it wasn't a lockpick.

  Rhabia looked at Morlock. There must be some reason he wasn't saying anything—maybe Nurgnatz was (or could be) listening just outside the door. She gestured toward the door of her cage, as if to say, Shall we go now?

  Morlock held up his hand (Wait!) and then gestured with his hand toward himself and then waved in the direction Nurgnatz had gone. She guessed he was telling her to stay where she was until Nurgnatz came back and took him away.

  She gestured at him and herself and then more urgently toward the cage door. Let's go now!

  He gestured at his shoulders. She didn't get it at first, then she realized he was saying, What about my backpack?

  She gestured at him, then herself, then at her own shoulders, meaning, Is a backpack worth your life or mine?

  Rather unimaginatively, he gestured at his shoulders again, which Rhabia interpreted as, I'm getting my damn backpack.

  She shrugged and stood pat. After all, it was barely possible he knew what he was doing. If Nurgnatz wanted what was in Morlock's backpack so bad, maybe h
e shouldn't get it.

  Morlock was pointing solemnly at his head, then at Rhabia. You're pretty smart, she read this.

  “And cute, too,” she replied aloud, in a Nurgnatzian burst of self-esteem, and turned away to staunch her wounds.

  Time passed. Crouching in a corner of her cage, Rhabia actually fell asleep for a while, in spite of her pain, and the cold, and her fear. But when Nurgnatz returned with his headless bear in attendance, her head snapped up and she leaped to her feet. The bear was walking upright, Rhabia saw dimly through sleep-bleared eyes, and its red forepaws were actually hands of a sort—with seven or eight fingers each, and at least three thumbs per hand.

  Nurgnatz opened Morlock's cage and stood back. The headless bear rushed in before Morlock could dodge out, and it grabbed him with four arms—an extra pair extruded from the headless bear's belly to help it keep the crooked man captive. Then it lumbered out of the cage and went to stand by Nurgnatz.

  “See you soon, my dear!” carolled the gnome, his warty chin still stained with her blood, and he dodged out of the many-mirrored chamber again. The headless bear, carrying Morlock, lumbered swiftly after.

  She waited until their sounds had vanished, following them up the tunnel, and then she got to work with the lockpick. Her wounded hand hurt more than ever, and every time she had to use it the stumps started bleeding again…but fortunately she was right-handed. And, anyway, this was life or death; she couldn't worry about minor discomforts, or even major ones.

  She had picked a few locks before, for lockbox owners who had lost their keys. (She wasn't a thief.) This lock was trickier than any she had tackled; Nurgnatz was evidently almost as gifted as he thought himself. But the lockpick was handier than any she'd used before; several times it seemed to move on its own to turn the tumblers back. Eventually she was free and gratefully pocketed the little device.

  Now the program was a little hazier. But there was one obvious way out: the way she had come in. Unfortunately, that was also the way Nurgnatz and his headless bear had dragged Morlock. Still…