Unfettered

by Terry Brooks

  “Here now,” Blivet soothed him. “Surely your share of the reward money will be more than enough to purchase you a lovely stone hut in the wilderness somewhere. Perhaps you should move farther north—I hear that the arctic air of the Orkneys is lovely and dry, which should be easier on your infirmity.”

  “Dry, yes, but cold enough to freeze the berries off a basilisk!” said the ogre cheerlessly. “That would play hob with my joints, now wouldn’t it?” Again his chest heaved.

  “Oh, look at the poor fellow!” Guldhogg said, coming up. “He’s so sad! His little face is all scrunched up! Isn’t there anything we can do?”

  Blivet examined the sobbing giant, whose “little face” was the size of the knight’s war-shield. At last Blivet sighed, turned to the dragon, and said, “I may have a solution. But first I’ll need that cask of ale.”

  “Really?” asked Guldhogg, who was interested to see what odd human thing Blivet would do next. “What are you going to do with it?”

  “Drink it,” the knight said. “Most of it, anyway.”

  Sir Blivet had just realized that if he wanted to make his friend Guldhogg happy, they were going to have to let the now-homeless ogre join them—which meant that, once again, they would be moving on in the morning.

  It didn’t seem too bad at first. Ljotunir’s presence meant that Guldhogg could take the occasional week off from menacing townsfolk, leaving that strenuous chore to the Ljotunir, and that they could even go back to some localities they had already scourged of dragons (well, one dragon, anyway), but which would now need their help with ogre infestations. But Blivet himself was not getting any days off, and they were doing a great deal of tramping from county to county.

  Guldhogg couldn’t help noticing that the knight drank a great deal of ale every night before falling asleep now, or that his conversation, quite expansive only a few weeks earlier, was now reduced mostly to, “Forsooth, whatever.”

  And things were getting worse.

  News of the confidence game that Blivet and Guldhogg were running in the middle of England had begun to spread around the island—not among the townsfolk who were its targets but the within the nation’s large community of fabulous, mythical, and semi-imaginary animals. These creatures could not help noticing that two very large members of their kind, a dragon and an ogre, had found a way not only to survive, but also to thrive. As word of this breakthrough got around, Blivet and his friends soon found that everywhere they went they were getting business propositions from various haunts and horrors down on their luck or otherwise in need of a change.

  “I know it will be a bit hard on us, Blivet old friend,” said Guldhogg. “But I can’t help it—I know how these creatures feel. It’s been a long, bad time for mythical monsters, and it’s only going to get worse when the Renaissance shows up in a few hundred years.”

  “But we can’t use all of them,” Blivet protested. “What right-thinking town council is going to hire a knight to slay a couple of cobbler’s elves?”

  “We can find work for them. Say, look at your boots, Blivvy. Wouldn’t you like to have those resoled?”

  Blivet sighed. “Pass me that ale, will you?”

  Before the year had passed, Blivet and Guldhogg had added to their enterprise (mostly at the dragon’s urging) a cockatrice, a pair of hippogriffs who were passionately in love with each other and had decided to run away from their hippogriffic families, plus an expanding retinue of shellycoats, lubber men, bargests, and suchlike other semi-mythical folk. What had once been a compact, convenient man-and-dragon partnership was becoming a sort of strange covert parade traveling from county to county across the center of England.

  Guldhogg had hoped the added numbers would make their business easier, because they could now revisit places they had already saved several more times (and not only from ogres or chimeras, but also from less-feared but still unpleasant fates, like a long and painful season of being harried by bogbears). Any gain in income, however, had been offset by the need to keep their gigantic, semi-mythical menagerie hidden, on the move, and—most importantly—fed as they crossed back and forth across the English midlands.

  The biggest problem, of course, was that Blivet himself had simply grown weary of marching from town to town, pretending to kill things. He may also have been slightly depressed to find that instead of revering him as a noble dragonslayer, his countrymen now viewed him as little more than a jumped-up exterminator, chasing shellycoats and leprechauns away as if they were so many rats.

  Guldhogg noticed that Blivet was becoming less and less interested in keeping the now massive operation hidden. The movement of their troop from city to city was threatening to become more parade than stealthy exercise. Already a few humans had joined their train, giving the whole thing more of a feeling of a holiday fair than a serious moneymaking enterprise. Even a dragon could see that it was only a matter of time until some of the townsfolk realized just how badly they had been cozened.

  And Guldhogg wasn’t the only one who could see what was coming: Blivet had begun buying his ale in bulk.

  The irony, not lost on Guldhogg, was that they could probably have made more money selling the local people tickets to see all the strange animals—they were all happy enough to dump considerable sums at ragged local fairs—but Blivet and the dragon had to work from dawn until long after midnight each day just getting their charges fed and keeping them moving; any greater degree of organization would have been impossible.

  Then a narrowly averted tragedy in Smethwick, when a family of werewolves left the troop to hunt for supper and ran into a children’s crusade, finally made it clear to Guldhogg that things had to change. (The near-catastrophe just seemed to make Blivet even more thirsty.)

  The dragon recognized that his knightly friend was at a serious crossroads, probably one more septic basilisk bite away from leaving the now-sprawling enterprise behind in search of a calmer life. Guldhogg was an old dragon, and although he was long past his own mating days, he also recognized his friend had a need for nurturing companionship of the sort that even a vast army of bogbears, ogres, and camelopards could not provide.

  Two of the newest members of the troop were articulate ravens, raucous, sly, and clever. In exchange for a few shiny articles out of Guldhogg’s now large collection, they agreed to undertake some work for him, hunting the highways and byways of Late Dark Ages Britain for a situation that met the dragon’s specifications.

  One day, while the troop was camped by the River Derwent to water the selkies, the ravens returned with the news Guldhogg had been waiting for.

  “Haunted Forest?” Blivet looked doubtfully at the sign (and perhaps slightly unsteadily, since he had already been into the ale that morning). Even from the outskirts, the forest the sign announced looked likely to breed nightmares. The trees of the wood grew extremely close together, and they were also extremely large and old, casting such deep shadows that it was almost hard to believe there was turf beneath them. The location beneath lowering mountains was stone silent, and the air of the little valley, far from civilization but close to a major thoroughfare, was dreadful enough to put even the basilisks off their breakfasts (truly not an easy thing to do). “Looks nasty. What monster lurks in here?” the knight asked. “And even if it might be of use to our venture, why should I go look for it instead of you or Ljotunir or one of the other large creatures? I haven’t fought anything dangerous for real in years.”

  “Yes, but you are the best judge of monstrous character,” Guldhogg said soothingly. “We all admire your judgment. We also agree your ideas are the finest and most useful.”

  Blivet gave him a skeptical look. “Really?”

  “Oh, absolutely. Especially when you’re not drinking too much.”

  The knight scowled. “You haven’t answered my question. What monster lurks in this unhallowed place?” He shivered a little in the chilly wind that seemed to whistle out of the forest itself rather than from anywhere else.

  “
Some kind of she-creature,” said Guldhogg offhandedly. “I couldn’t say for certain.”

  “And how can anyone care about this she-creature, out in the middle of nowhere?” Blivet looked around. “Honestly, Guldhogg, who would pay to have it dispatched? There isn’t a town within twenty furlongs of this place.” In truth, to Blivet, the dragon seemed a bit nervous. “Are you sure this is the right forest?”

  “Oh, absolutely. And there are excellent reasons for you to go in there,” said Guldhogg firmly. “Absolutely, there are. I’ll explain it all later, Blivvy. Go on, now. I’ll be right here, listening. Call if you need me.”

  Sir Blivet gave the dragon a last dubious look, then banged down the visor of his helmet, took his lance in his arm, and spurred forward into the trees, perhaps thinking that the sooner he could get this over with, the sooner he could get back to the companionability of an ale-cask, which required no monster-bearding as a price of friendship.

  The forest was just as dire inside as it appeared from the outside, shadowed and silent, with the webs of huge but not presently visible spiders swaying in the breeze. Sir Blivet felt as if eyes were watching him at every step, and he had just about decided that he was going to return to the camp and declare the she-beast unfindable when someone called him.

  “Sir Knight?”

  He turned, his stomach suddenly sour with unease. A robed figure stepped from the shadows and out onto the deer track his horse had been following. “Who are you?” he asked, trying to remember the boldly fearless tone he had been able to summon easily in his younger days, before he knew any better. “Are you in need of assistance?”

  “I could be,” the stranger said. “Are you Sir Guldhogg?”

  “Sir Gul…” Blivet shook his head in confusion. “No. Guldhogg is a friend of mine, but…” He peered at the shrouded figure, but it was hard to make out much of the face in the hood. “I am in fact Sir Blivet, semi-fabled dragonslayer. Who are you?”

  “I am the She-Creature of Haunted Forest.” The newcomer threw back her hood, revealing herself to be a quite attractive short-haired woman of mature years, slender of neck and discerning of eye.

  “You are the she-creature?”

  “Well, I’m really more of a witch.” She gave an embarrassed laugh. “But when I first moved here several years ago, I spread the rumor of a dangerous and deadly beast in these woods so that I would be left alone. People have a tendency to get obsessed with witches, and before you know it they’re looking you over for third nipples and hunting for kindling—you know what I mean. But I’m afraid I did the job a bit too well.” She shrugged and indicated the dark forest. “Everybody moved out. Even the people in the nearby towns all migrated in fear. So here I am.”

  “So here you are.” Blivet knew it wasn’t the most sensible thing to say, but he was a bit taken aback by the unexpected fairness of the she-creature’s face, and her modest but sensible speech. “But why, exactly?”

  “Because I live here.” She gave him a look that suggested she did not think highly of his intellect.

  “No, I mean, why am I here?” Blivet was beginning to wish he’d waited until later in the day before starting on the ale. “No, that’s not right either. What I mean is, why did you and…and Sir Guldhogg arrange this meeting?”

  “Ah. Fair question.” She smiled. “Who do you think a witch’s customers are, Sir Blivet? People. You want them to fear you, to be impressed by you, but you don’t want them to actually leave, because then who is one going to make love potions for? Whose sick calves and sick babies is one going to cure? For whom is one going to tell the future with cartomancy or tea leaves?”

  “Ah, I see what you mean about that, I suppose. But this meeting…”

  “Guldhogg opened the negotiations by raven. A good idea, since the local lord abandoned the place along with the peasants and the forest-folk, which means I haven’t been getting a lot of mail in the old way.”

  “Oh, I see,” said Blivet, who was now convinced he didn’t see anything at all. “Opened negotiations.”

  “Mr. Hogg told me that you and he and the rest of your…guild? Organization? Anyway, that your lot had been offered a tidy sum of money to come and dispatch the She-Creature of Haunted Forest, and that he felt honor-bound to let me know you were on your way. So I wrote back to him and offered him a business proposition, instead.”

  Ah. Now it all made a bit more sense, Blivet decided. “Business. Yes. So, have you a lot of gold?”

  She laughed again. Blivet couldn’t help noticing she was actually rather pretty—in a serious, mature sort of way—and even prettier when she was amused. “Ye gods, no!” said the witch. “I haven’t a ha’penny. How would I, with all of my customers gone to Rutland County and points south? No, I haven’t got any money at all. Walk with me now, and let’s talk about this.”

  Blivet dismounted, although he couldn’t quite see the sense of it. Still, he found himself willing to spend more time in the company of this attractive woman. She had a personality that wasn’t what he would have expected from a witch. “But if you haven’t any money, what are we going to talk about? I mean, business-wise?”

  Now it was her turn to shake her head. “Silly man. As if gold was the only valuable thing in the world. My name is Hecate, by the way. Named after the goddess.”

  “Pleased to meet you, Mistress Hecate.”

  “I don’t have a cent—but I am the owner of this forest by fee simple. I did a favor for the local lord—cured his daughter of the pox—so when he moved out (well, fled, really) he gave it to me, mostly to keep me from undoing his daughter’s cure, I suspect.” She cleared her throat. “Which means I am, as is sometimes said, cash-poor but land-rich, handsome Sir Blivet, and I would like to offer you and Sir Guldhogg a mutually beneficial alliance.”

  It took them a year and a surprisingly large fraction of their savings to build a fence around the forest, which although not large was still a forest. Workers had to be trucked in by wagon for all the jobs that couldn’t be performed by redcaps and hunkypunks. Then they needed another year for clearing and building, with the result that the Dark Ages had almost ended by the day the grand opening finally arrived.

  “I still don’t think it’s fair,” the dragon was saying in a sullen tone. “After all, it was my idea. I led you to each other. I arranged it all, more or less. And you’re still going to call it Blivetland?”

  “Don’t sulk, Guldhogg,” said Hecate. “You haven’t seen the surprise yet.”

  “He’s always that way,” said Sir Blivet. “He doesn’t drink, either.”

  “And neither should you,” said Guldhogg, still grumpy.

  “Don’t be mean, Guldy,” the witch said. “My Blivvy’s been very abstemious lately.”

  “Too bloody busy to be anything else,” the knight agreed. “Do you know how much work it was just setting up the concession stands and teaching boggarts to count?”

  “Well, it was either that or putting them on display, and you know what they did when we tried that. We can’t have them flinging boggart dung at the paying customers, can we?”

  “Well, I think it’s time for us to get out and meet the public,” Blivet said. “Come on, Guldhogg. I’ve got something to show you.”

  Considering how deserted this entire stretch of the north had been only a couple of short years ago, it was quite impressive to see the crowds lined up hundreds deep all along the great fence, waiting to enter through the massive front gate. The dragon was all for letting them in immediately—“Money is burning a hole in their pockets, Blivet!”—but the knight forbade it until a last chore had been done.

  “Just pull this rope,” he told the dragon. “Go on, old chum, take it in your mouth and yank.”

  Guldhogg, who had been gazing with keen regret at the carved wooden sign over the gate, the one that read “Blivetland,” shrugged his wings and pulled on the rope. An even larger sign, this one painted on canvas, rolled down to hang in plain view of the entire assembly.


  “Oh,” said Guldhogg, sounding quite overcome. “Oh, is that…is that really…?”

  “Yes, silly, it’s you,” said Hecate, elbowing him in his substantial, scale-covered ribs. “Well, except we’re calling you ‘Guldy Hogg,’ because it sounds friendlier.” She and Blivet and Guldhogg looked up at the gigantic sign rippling in the spring breeze, with its huge and colorful painted representation of Guldhogg himself, face stretched in a friendly grin. “It’s everywhere, you know,” she said.

  “What is?”

  “Your picture, silly. You’re the official mascot of Blivetland. We have Guldy Hogg souvenir tunics, tea towels—even hats!” She took one of the latter from behind her back and handed it to Sir Blivet, who put it on with only the smallest show of reluctance. The protruding nostrils of the dragon face on the hat looked almost like the round ears of some bizarre rodent. “It’s a wonderful likeness, Guldy!” cried Hecate. “So handsome!”

  As Guldhogg stared at his own face perched atop his friend’s head, the gates of Blivetland opened and the first crowd of paying customers pushed their way in, hurrying forward into the forest to see Griffin Island and Nessie’s Cove and ride on Guldy Hogg’s Wild Wing Ride, which consisted of large tubs whirling around on ropes, the whole thing powered by Ljotunir the ogre spinning a sizeable potter’s wheel assembly with his strong and astoundingly ugly feet. Excited people seemed already to have filled every festive corner of the forest, and the vendors were already selling small beer and Goblin Goodies hand over fist.

  The sound of money clinking into Blivetland’s coffers put the three founders in a very benign mood.

  “Isn’t this better than tramping around the country?” asked Hecate. “We stay here and the country comes to us!”

  “But I thought I was going to be allowed to retire,” growled Sir Blivet. “Instead, you will work me into my quickly approaching grave.”

  “Nonsense. You and Guldy only have to put on two brief shows a day—well, three on Saturdays—and he’s the one who has to do all the costume changes, pretending to be all the other dragons you slew.”