The Fellowship of the Talisman

by Clifford D. Simak

  “Those trees were not there before,” he said.

  “What trees?” Diane asked.

  “The trees outside the circle.”

  “You don’t understand,” she said. “From this place you see everything the way it was when the castle was created. At the time it came into being this land was wilderness, with only a few wild tribes or occasional hunters following the few paths that ran across it.”

  They continued their climb and finally came to the great entrance, which led into a large room, a sort of reception hall, thought Duncan. The floor was of well-fitted, colorful flagstone, and from it ran up several other short stone staircases leading to other parts of the castle. Candelabra set in the walls flared with thick waxen candles, lending a soft light to the hall.

  In the center of the hall stood a six-foot column of stone, three feet through, and at the sight of what crouched atop it, Duncan and all the others stopped short in their tracks.

  “Come on,” said Diane impatiently. “It is only Scratch. There is no need to fear him. I assure you he’s quite tame and harmless.”

  Slowly they went forward, the creature on top of the column watching them intently. The creature spoke to them. “Only Scratch, she says, and she speaks right, as she always does, for she is a very truthful and even a kindly person. You see before you, either for your pity or your contempt, a demon straight from the pits of Hell.”

  “He always dramatizes,” said Diane. “He stops all who visit to tell his story to them. There’s no one now, of course, who can judge how true it is, but he has much to tell. Give him the opportunity and he’ll talk an arm off you.”

  “But what is he?” asked Duncan.

  “He is what he told you, a demon out of Hell. He has served as doorkeeper here for almost as long as the castle has existed.”

  “That is what they designate me,” said Scratch, “but I keep no door. I am chained here to this column as a subject for ridicule by humans, who more often than not make great sport of me. Rather, it seems to me, I should be an object of deep pity, the most unfortunate of creatures, a runaway from my place of origin, but not a true resident of this palace of opulence and glory. Gaze upon me, please, and see if I tell you wrong. See my crumpled horn, observe the hump upon my back, the clubfoot that I carry, my crippled hands, clenched and held as in a vise by arthritis, the result of the foul and damp and chilly climate of this most barbarous of countries.”

  “Scratch, shut up,” Diane said sharply.

  “And please,” said Scratch, “look upon my tail which, along with his horns, is the pride of any demon. Look upon it and tell me if it seems a thing of pride. Broken in three places and never set properly, although the setting of it would have been as child’s play for any competent chirurgeon.”

  “Scratch,” said Diane, “I command you to be silent. Stop this endless chatter. Our guests have no interest in you.”

  All that Scratch had said of himself, Duncan saw, was true. The last third of his tail took the form of an amazing zigzag, as if it had been broken and no attempt made to reset the bones, or if an attempt had been made, it had been very badly done. His left foot was clubbed, at least three times as large as it should have been, and with a misshapen hoof enclosing the malformation. Above the clubfoot a long chain was riveted, hanging in a loop to the floor, the other end of it set into a heavy metal staple sunk into the stone. An unsightly hump rode his shoulder blades, forcing the upper half of his body into an awkward forward thrust. The left horn atop his head was perfectly formed, short, but stout, the other horn distorted and grown to greater size, ridged with ugly wrinkles like the markings on a clam shell, and bent close against his forehead. His outthrust hands were twisted and bent, the fingers convulsively half closed.

  Conrad moved closer to the column, reached up to touch one of the crippled hands. “You poor son-of-a-bitch,” said Conrad.

  Diane spoke coldly. “Let us proceed. He is no one to waste your pity on.”

  20

  First Diane administered to the wounds, smearing salve on Conrad’s gash, swabbing off Andrew’s abraded face and rubbing soothing unguent on it, cleaning out the small cut on Duncan’s head. Meg, who had come through without a scratch upon her, sat in a chair too high for her, with her feet dangling off the floor, cackling as she recalled her part in the battle.

  “Faith,” she said, “the old girl knew what she was about. I got well down to the ground, well out of all harm’s way. I killed no single one of them, for I had not the strength to do it, but I discommoded them. I found a stout branch that had fallen from a thorn tree and from where I crouched upon the ground, I cracked them in the shins. They did not know what hit them, and I whacked with all the strength I had in my scrawny arm. But I made them hop and flinch, and as they hopped and flinched, m’lord smote them with his blade or the hermit speared them with his staff.”

  “Always in the gut,” said Andrew proudly. “The gut is a soft place and easily penetrated with a determined blow.”

  “I don’t know how you managed it,” said Diane. “I got there as quickly as I could, but …”

  “Our arms were strong,” said Conrad sanctimoniously, “because our cause was just.”

  The doctoring over, they explored the larder and found a haunch of beef, well roasted, a large loaf of wheaten bread, a wheel of cheese, a platter of fried fowl left over from the day before, a small pigeon pie, a keg half full of pickled herring, and a basket of juicy pears.

  “Cuthbert, when he does not forget to eat,” said Diane, “is a trencherman of note. He likes good food and, too often, far too much of it. He is no stranger to the gout.”

  Now they sat around the table in the kitchen, where Diane had done her doctoring, the medications pushed to one end of the table, the food set on the other.

  “I must beg your pardon,” Diane said, “for serving you in such a lowly place, but the dining room is far too splendid. It makes me a bit self-conscious. It is too splendid a room for my taste and, I would suppose, for yours as well. Also, once the meal is done, there is much china and silver to be washed and dried and put away again. It is too much work.”

  “Cuthbert?” asked Duncan. “You have spoken of him often. When will we be able to talk with him? Or will we?”

  “Most certainly,” said Diane, “but not tonight. There was a time when he would sit up half the night, working at his desk, but of late years he has taken to going to his bed at the coming of first dusk. The man is old and needs his rest. And now suppose you tell me all that’s happened since the day I first met you in the orchard. There have been rumors, of course, of the things that you have done, but you know how rumors are. Not to be relied upon.”

  “Nothing great,” said Duncan. “We have, it seems, stumbled from one disaster to another, but each time have managed to escape by the skin of our teeth.”

  They told her, chiming in on the story by turns, while she sat listening intently, her head bent forward, the flare of the candles making another flame of her shining hair. One thing Duncan did not tell her, and the others did not think to, or noticing that he had omitted it, made no mention of it—and that was about the finding of the amulet in Wulfert’s tomb.

  Watching her as she listened, Duncan debated whether he should go back along the story’s trail and tell her of the amulet, but in the end he refrained from doing so. Certainly, he knew, it was a thing that would greatly interest her, and perhaps she had a right to know—most surely had the right to know if Wulfert truly had been kin of hers, as she had said.

  Finally, when the story was all done, she asked of Wulfert. “You remember that I was seeking him,” she said, “or rather, some word of him, for he must have long since been dead. You, Sir Hermit, before we were interrupted by the hairless ones, seemed to indicate that you knew of him. For some reason you did not explain, you appeared to be greatly distressed.”

  Andrew lifted his head, looking across the table at the sternness of Duncan’s face.

  “Only, m
ilady,” he said smoothly, “that I had heard of him, knew that he was buried in the village cemetery. My distress was that the village had regarded him as a saintly man. It was a shock to learn that he had been, instead, a wizard.”

  “You were outraged to learn that he was a wizard and no holy man?”

  “Milady,” said Andrew, “I and the people of my village were only simple folk. Perhaps even ignorant folk. We did not know of wizards. We had thought …”

  “I can guess what you had thought,” said Diane. “And it seems that I remember you saying that he was placed in a tomb, that the village built a tomb for him because he was thought a saintly man.”

  “That is right,” said Andrew, “but an oak fell and shattered it. In some great storm, perhaps.”

  “There is a story, perhaps no more than a legend, that he carried with him a piece of wondrous magic. Had you ever heard of that?”

  “No ma’am, I don’t recall I ever had.”

  “I imagine not,” said Diane. “He would have kept it secret. I suppose it now is lost. Oh, the pity of it!”

  “Why the pity, ma’am?” asked Conrad.

  “The legend says that it was designed as a weird against the Horde of Evil, known in these parts as the Harriers.”

  “And,” said Duncan, “you hoped to recover it.”

  “Yes,” she said, “that had been my hope. There now is need of it.”

  Duncan felt the others looking at him.

  “Even had you found it,” he said, “it might be of little value. One would have to know how to put it to most effective use.”

  “No, I think not. I think the mere possession of it would be quite sufficient. The magic rests in the talisman itself, not in the user of it.”

  “Perhaps you should search the tomb,” said Conrad, skating on thin ice.

  “Perhaps,” said Diane. “I had thought of that. I had meant to go back again. But after the incident in the garden plot with the hairless ones, I had the frantic feeling that Cuthbert needed me, so I flew directly here. I found that he did indeed have need of me. I have nursed him ever since.”

  She made a motion with her hands. “Although I doubt the searching of the tomb would be of any use. Even had the talisman been buried with him, which it might not have been, when the oak fell upon the tomb its contents would have been revealed to anyone who might want to investigate. Certainly there would have been in the village those with a ghoulish twist of mind. Undoubtedly, had it been there, it would have been filched long since.”

  “What you say may well be true,” said Andrew, “but of this talisman you speak of I have never heard.”

  “A tomb robber,” said Diane, “would not reveal himself.”

  “I suppose not,” Andrew said.

  No one was watching him any more, Duncan saw. The deed had been done. Rightly or wrongly, the lie had been told. To the man, they had backed him in his secrecy. Of them all, only Meg had said nothing and she, he knew, would not go against the rest of them. His fingers itched to go to the pouch at his side, touch the slight bulge of the amulet to assure himself that it still was there. But he fought successfully against doing it.

  Tiny, who had gulped down a generous helping from the roast, earlier had been lying, asleep or half-asleep, in one corner of the kitchen, but now, Duncan noted, he was gone. More than likely he had gone out exploring. The castle had a lot of nooks and crannies that he could snoop in.

  “There is one thing that intrigues me,” Duncan said to Diane. “I asked you earlier, but you had no chance to answer. It concerns the Huntsman. Why should he get himself involved?”

  “He hates the Evil,” Diane told him. “As do many of the others of us. The Little Folk—you’ll find few of them who have any liking for the Evil. Basically they themselves are not evil; only different. There are certain naturally evil beings, of course, like the werewolves, the ghouls, the vampires, and others who would willingly align themselves with the Harriers, holding them in high regard and believing that they may be one with them. But the Little Folk are decent people and so is the Huntsman.”

  “I have wondered,” Duncan said, “if he could have been watching us all the time. We saw him a few nights ago and I am certain, at an earlier time, I heard him in the sky.”

  “He could have been.”

  “But why should he bother with us?”

  “He is a free spirit, the Huntsman. I know very little about him, although I met him briefly a few years ago. He originated, I believe, in the Germanies, but I can’t be sure of that. Maybe sometime in the past he may have witnessed some of the ravages brought about by the Harriers and has been watching them ever since.”

  “A crusader for the right?”

  “No, I’d scarcely call him that.”

  “In any case,” said Andrew, “we are appreciative of the part he played today.”

  “This Evil,” said Duncan. “I wonder what it really is.”

  “Cuthbert, if you asked, probably could tell you much better than I can,” said Diane.

  “Our archbishop at the abbey back home suggested that the creatures may feed on the misery of the world and that they will go to any lengths to keep that misery going.”

  “I have heard that,” Diane said, “but Cuthbert is an expert on the Evil. He has spent long years in the study of it. He has at hand much documentation bearing on it. He’s the one to ask about it.”

  “Would he be willing to discuss it with us? Many experts grow somewhat jealous of the body of knowledge they have acquired.”

  “Yes, I think he will.”

  A burst of savage barking came from far away. Conrad leaped to his feet. “That’s Tiny,” he said. “I’ll take care of him. There are times when he hasn’t got good sense.”

  Turning, he ran out the door and the others pelted after him. “Sic ’em, boy!” yelled Meg.

  “No, not that,” snapped Conrad. “Don’t encourage him.”

  They ran down a hall and across the magnificent dining hall, coming out on the circular corridor that fronted on the huge reception hall.

  There they sighted Tiny. He was in front of the demon’s column, his rear thrust high into the air, his front feet thrust out on the floor, his muzzle resting on them. His tail was waving frantically in good fun, and every now and then he lifted his head from his paws to unloose a half-playful, half-savage barking at the crouching Scratch.

  Conrad went clattering down the staircase to the hall. “Tiny, cut it out,” he yelled. “Tiny, you damn fool. Leave Old Scratch alone.”

  The demon sang out at him in protest. “Not Old Scratch. That is another demon entirely. That is the full-fledged Devil. To call me Scratch was a play on words. The ones who finally trapped and caught me would guffaw and roll upon the floor in laughter when they called me Scratch. For reasons that I do not entirely understand, it was a great joke to them. But they called me Young Scratch, to distinguish me, you understand, from the other one. But finally it became simply Scratch and that I have been ever since. Which is not an appellation that I enjoy overmuch, but since I have been stuck with it all these years I must live by it.”

  Conrad strode across the floor to Tiny, grabbed him by the collar and hauled him to his feet. “Shame on you,” he said. “Here he is, chained to this stone, while you are running free. You should be ashamed.”

  Tiny fawned on Conrad, but he did not look ashamed.

  Duncan, coming up behind Conrad, said to Scratch, “You seem to be all right. Did he try to harm you?”

  “Not in the least,” said the demon. “He was only engaged in some doggish fun. I did not mind at all. He had no intent to hurt me, nor, I believe, to even frighten me. In his doggish mind, he only played a game with me.”

  “That’s generous of you,” said Duncan.

  “Why, thank you, sir. It is very decent of you to say so.”

  “And by the way,” asked Duncan, “is it true, as you said, that you are a demon from the very pits of Hell? And if that is so, how come you here?
”

  “That is a long story and a sad one,” said Scratch. “Someday, when you have the time, I will relate to you the whole of it. I was an apprentice demon, you must understand, assigned to the antechambers of the Infernal Regions to learn my vocations. But, I fear, I did very badly at it. So to speak, I was all thumbs. I never did get anything quite right. I suppose I never really got into the spirit of the job. I was always in the doghouse. Constantly I was reprimanded for my lack of honest zeal.”

  “Maybe you were not cut out to be a demon.”

  “That may well be. But being a demon, I had little choice. There were few other occupations that were open to me. I would have you believe that at all times I did my valiant best.”

  “So what happened?”

  “Why, I ran away. I couldn’t take it any longer. One day I just cut out. And do you know, sir, and this was the unkindest cut of all—I don’t believe they made any great effort to run me down and haul me back.”

  “Except for the chain, you have good treatment here?”

  “Except for the chain, I would say so. I know that I am somewhat better treated here than a human would be treated should he find himself in Hell.”

  21

  Cuthbert lay propped up in bed by two pillows placed atop one another against the headboard. He wore a nightcap of startling red and a nightgown with ruffles at the throat and wrists. He was a sunken man. His eyes were sunken deep beneath white, bushy eyebrows, the cap coming down so far upon his forehead that it seemed to rest upon the eyebrows. His face was sunken so that his cheekbones could be seen, the skin drawn tightly over them, his nose stabbing out like a beak, the mouth a furrow between the stabbing nose and outjutting chin. His chest was sunken, his shoulders rising above it in their bony knobbiness. Beneath the coverlet his stomach was so flat and sunken that the pelvic bones stood out, making twin humps beneath the bedclothes.

  He cackled at Duncan, then spoke in a raspy voice, “So. Diane tells me you smote them hip and thigh. That’s the way to do it. That’s the one language that they understand.”